Funded by
Adler, Gerald Professor SRG22\220329
University of Kent
Heinrich Tessenow: words, buildings and drawings
Value awarded: £7,610
Abstract: This project concerns the work of a little-known German architect of the first half of the 20th century. It culminates in the publication of the first English-language monograph on Heinrich Tessenow, with associated ‘impact’ and professional and public engagement activities. It identifies themes in his work comprising executed buildings, drawings and writings, and exemplifies them within his oeuvre, contextualising them within twentieth-century architectural history, and finally explaining why this architect is relevant to our needs today. It is written and illustrated in a way that engages with people outside Germanophone architectural culture in order to show his historical and topical significance.
Themes in Tessenow’s work which particularly resonate with a contemporary audience include material and energy sustainability, gendered space, and human-scaled urbanism and postwar reconstruction, all expressed in his aesthetic of reticence and modesty - an antidote to much of the ‘iconic’, showy architecture of today.
Afreh, Benjamin Dr SRG22\220130
Nottingham Trent University
Improving maternal health in Africa: Exploring how gendered practices shape the legitimation process of informal healthcare providers (IMHELP)
Value awarded: £9,705
Abstract: Maternal health remains a serious challenge in Africa. Despite a remarkable decline in global maternal mortality in the last decade, the continent accounts for more than half of the world's maternal death rate. In many countries on the continent, governments have been unable to develop functioning health systems to address maternal healthcare challenges. Thus, operators of informal healthcare firms emerge, thrive and persist in such settings to provide product and service offerings that seek to address gaps in the formal health systems. Despite their crucial roles, management research that explores the organisational forms and governance mechanisms of firms of informal health providers remains less developed. The IMHELP project seeks to advance our understanding of how gender practices shape the legitimation process of these firms and their effect on the provision of quality maternal care in rural Ghana. It further seeks to identify and discuss theoretical and policy implications.
Ahmed, Ibtisam Mr SRG22\221468
Independent Researcher
LIVE, WORK, POSE: the History of a Queer House
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: This project captures the history of a queer House - a collective of LGBTQ+ individuals who come together to perform, share experiences, and uplift each other's fully lived identities. Following the collective known as the House of Spice, a group of LGBTQ+ people with South Asian, Middle Eastern and Persian heritage, for a period of two years, the research acts as an archive of the queer House experience. Led directly by the members of the House, the project will collect individual and group stories that consider the identity of the House throughout its social gatherings, rehearsals, and performances. (This includes a dedicated performance piece at the end of the project period.) The hope is to celebrate a vibrant microcosm of queer culture in the UK, at a time when visibility and representation are becoming increasingly mainstream.
Aksoy, Cevat Giray Dr SRG22\220191
King's College London
The Economic Impact of Working from Home
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: This project will develop systematic evidence about whether working from home will stick, why, and some of the economic and societal implications. To do so, this project will continue to collect and exploit multiple waves of a repeated cross-sectional data from our original the Cross-Country Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes. Our research team (Nicholas Bloom, Steve Davis and myself) have fielded the survey in August 2021, January 2022, thus far collecting over 30,000 responses from working-age people from 25 countries (both developed and developing). We ask about working arrangements during the pandemic, personal experiences with WFH, worker preferences and employer plans about the extent of WFH after the pandemic ends, attitudes about contagion risks and vaccination, and much more.
Althalathini, Doaa Dr SRG22\220314
Oxford Brookes University
Refugee entrepreneurship and integration: a multiple embeddedness approach
Value awarded: £9,836.60
Abstract: The world faces one of the most critical challenges in modern history related to forced displacement and thus, in recent years, scholars have paid increased attention to the entrepreneurial potential of refugees. Nevertheless, research still focuses largely on immigrant entrepreneurs but not specifically the refugee context. Moreover, research on refugee entrepreneurs has largely overlooked why they may engage in entrepreneurship while focusing mainly on their experiences in their host countries. In this research, we aim to take a holistic and multi-level approach to explore the experiences of refugee entrepreneurs. We will be looking at their motivation to start businesses, what challenges they faced/still face while operating their business, how their experiences of conflict and displacement shaped their entrepreneurial behaviour, what support they’ve received, do they have any social/human capital in their home country or elsewhere that support them and their business and how, and how their business supports their integration.
Aske, Katherine Dr SRG22\220821
Independent Scholar
Skincare in Popular and Medical Culture, 1660–1800
Value awarded: £4,185
Abstract: This project will be the first medical humanities study to explore the extent to which women’s knowledge of and engagement with skincare impacted the development of dermatological treatments in England and Scotland from 1660 to 1800. Using personal accounts (letters, journals, doctor’s notes) and domestic remedy books, alongside advertisements, popular and professional printed medical literature, this project addresses various skin diseases and conditions, from smallpox and shingles to spots and pox. The research will create an original framework for examining the ways in which women’s attitudes to, knowledge of and beliefs about skin were a result of the growing medical market, the rise in literature aimed at women, and the idealisation of healthy, clear skin in literary and popular culture. It will shed new light on women's undervalued contribution in the development of dermatology.
Balliester Reis, Thereza Dr SRG22\220542
School of Oriental and African Studies
Can financial inclusion worsen poverty? A mixed-method investigation of the drivers of over-indebtedness in Nairobi, Kenya
Value awarded: £9,981
Abstract: Kenya is a flagship case for financial inclusion (FI) as a poverty alleviation tool. However, a 2018 World Bank survey reported that 20% of Kenyan borrowers reduced food consumption to repay loans. Whereas there is evidence from other developing countries, such as Brazil, that FI could worsen poverty and well-being, existing research for Kenya is scarce. My study aims to understand the causes and effects of over-indebtedness in Kenya to provide new evidence to policymakers. I apply mixed methods, where I use econometrics techniques to analyse microdata from 50,000 adults and combine such findings to the 30 in-depth interviews. Such investigation allows for recognising mechanisms that lead to debt and its effects on well-being. The results will allow for a cross-comparison analysis with my previous research on FI in Brazil, thus providing new evidence on indebtedness in Kenya besides highlighting best practices in both countries.
Banerjee, Rajlakshmi Dr SRG22\220465
Nottingham Trent University
Towards a Typology of Electronic Local Food Consumption (ELFC)
Value awarded: £8,898.13
Abstract: Despite a growing interest among consumers around local food, the availability of local food through online platforms is quite limited (Statista, 2022) and knowledge on how consumers interact with such platforms is still at a relatively early stage. Little is yet known about who uses these platforms, how the platforms influence local food purchase choices, or how they help to promote sustainable food practices. Research that develops a greater understanding of local food e-consumers is thus timely.
The aim of this research is to investigate and conceptualise typologies of electronic local food consumption(ELFC) within the UK. The study will employ a mix of secondary research and qualitative methods by gathering data on (ELFC) through online selling platforms (LFOSP) in the East Midlands, England and across Northern Ireland. The proposed research will identify and model LFOSPs first before exploring consumption behaviour (drivers and barriers) through digital platforms.
Barone, Ada Maria Dr SRG22\220721
Goldsmiths, University of London
Inclusive message framing: how to promote consumption of plant-based foods
Value awarded: £8800
Abstract: Dietary choices based on animal-based products such as red meat are the main contributor to the environmental and health challenges currently faced within the UK and across Europe. Hence, the adoption of fully plant-based diets (e.g., vegetarian) and the incorporation of more plant-based foods in the diet are seen as a feasible route towards sustainable development. However, acceptance of plant-based foods is still low; this is due to the stigma and negative associations elicited by identification with vegetarian diets. Thus, we propose that the consumption of plant-based foods can be more effectively encouraged by using labels that promote the idea of inclusion (e.g., “suitable for vegetarians”) rather than exclusion (e.g., “vegetarian”). We posit that by targeting both vegetarian and meat-eating consumers, inclusive message framing reduces identification with the negative aspects of vegetarian diets; this, in turn, has a positive effect on preference towards plant-based foods among meat eaters.
Bate, Jason Dr SRG22\220252
Birkbeck, University of London
Photography as a Schooling Issue in British Medicine, 1870-1914
Value awarded: £8830.7
Abstract: This project examines the impact of emerging photographic practices on British medical education between 1870 and 1914, in creating medical knowledge, helping shape Medical Schools, and communicating scientific ideas to specialists, patients and other interested actors. The Grant will enable urgent archival research in collections in England, Ireland, and Scotland that are restricted access or in danger of being lost. This research addresses Britain’s task of integrating new disciplines into practical learning in teaching hospitals by questioning photography’s place in the broader history of the economic and cultural concerns of public health work, and offers an innovative methodological model for the study of photographic sources in the history of medicine. It will result in one workshop and two articles, ‘Photography as a Schooling Issue in British Medicine 1870-1914’ for Early Popular Visual Culture and ‘Early Hospital Photographic Societies and the Pursuit of Collaborative Education, 1870-1914’ for History of Photography.
Bates, David Professor SRG22\220132
University of East Anglia
The Life of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent
Value awarded: £6918
Abstract: Odo of Bayeux was one of the major figures in the histories of the secular and ecclesiastical eleventh-century Norman worlds. For the general public, he is closely associated with the Bayeux Tapestry. The Tapestry will feature in the book, but it can actually only be understood through a full understanding of Odo's life as a bishop in Normandy, an earl in England, and within the European cultural worlds in which he operated. His intellectual patronage, his work at Bayeux, his life in England, his attempt to become pope, and his death on the First Crusade are central aspects of this. The book will be the culmination of a life-time's interest starting with a PhD thesis completed in 1970 and recently revived by research and reading. It will deepen understanding of the eleventh-century European ecclesiastical and cultural worlds Odo inhabited, the conquest of England, and the life of an important man.
Batkin, Jane Dr SRG22\220937
University of Lincoln
The Secret Space of Childhood in Animated and Live Action Cinema: Performance, Preservation and Metaphor
Value awarded: £2869
Abstract: The child’s image in film and television is contentious yet affirming, troubling but appealing, and its performance may be viewed as truth or fiction. The space childhood occupies is enthralling: it is inadmissible to adults, yet it is captured and preserved forever on screen. This project proposes an exploration into the secret space of childhood in film and television and will focus on the intersections and cross-pollinations that occur between the live action and animated child. A variety of methodologies will be used such as archival research, textual film analysis and interviews with animation film directors. The project will analyse how and why animated and live action childhoods are preserved as sites of nostalgia, how performance and space connects these mediums, and how these children choose to connect with their audience.
Bazhydai, Marina Dr SRG22\221074
Lancaster University
Selective teaching: Do children transmit generalisable or specific information in health and non-health related contexts
Value awarded: £9951.6
Abstract: Children are not only effective learners, but also actively teach others what they know – and do so selectively with respect to information type and its recipients. As such, children tend to share information that is generalisable to a kind (“dogs have fur”), rather than specific (“this dog has spots”). However, it is unknown whether such generalisability preference is retained when information is not neutral. Using a novel interactive online paradigm, we aim to conceptually replicate previous findings and extend this line of research to systematically investigate knowledge transfer in salient health-related domains. We expect a disruption of generalisability preference, which would have implications for our understanding of children’s reasoning and social behaviour when dealing with – and propagating – health-related information, a topic especially significant in the context of the recent pandemic. The proposed research programme thus aims to advance our understanding of children’s selective teaching in different contexts.
Black, Sharon SRG22\220356
University of East Anglia
Understanding how deaf and hard of hearing children use subtitles to access videos: an investigation using eye tracking
Value awarded: £9862
Abstract: Children are spending more time in front of screens than ever before, and are accessing video content on a range of devices and platforms. There are approximately 50,000 deaf children in the UK, and it is of critical importance and a legal requirement that deaf and hard of hearing children benefit from full and equal access to video materials for their education, entertainment, and social and cultural development. However, how children read subtitles is little understood, with few studies having used eye tracking to measure children’s viewing patterns while watching subtitled videos. This research will contribute to filling this gap. Two eye tracking experiments will be performed with deaf or hard of hearing children in the UK, focusing on two important aspects of subtitling: subtitle speed and speaker identification. This project will provide academic and industry experts with timely, novel and rigorous evidence to inform research, policy and practice.
Blackbourn, Jessie Dr SRG22\220436
Durham University
Implementing the Counter-Extremism Programme Prevent: A Case Study of Policy Implementation in a North-East County Council
Value awarded: £6710
Abstract: Under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, local authorities have a dual role in the UK’s counter-extremism programme ‘Prevent’: they are subject to a statutory duty to ‘have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’ and they are responsible, alongside the police, for providing support to individuals assessed as being vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. How local authorities implement Prevent can therefore have a significant impact on vulnerable individuals in their area. Over the past seven years, the government has issued a range of guidance to help local authorities implement Prevent, but has not monitored its operation. This two-year project adopts a case study approach to explore how local authorities understand, interpret, and put into practice government guidance and consequently, how this impacts on the implementation of the Prevent programme.
Blankshein, Stephanie Dr SRG22\220095
University of Southampton
Water Penetrating Radar for freshwater archaeological survey
Value awarded: £6610
Abstract: The lack of investigation of freshwater bodies has been raised as a critical issue in the UK and globally for maritime archaeology. Part of the reason for limited research is the challenging nature of the environment; too shallow for many marine techniques, too wet for terrestrial methods. This project looks to leverage the potential for Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to change this through its application as Water Penetrating Radar (WPR). GPR is a terrestrial survey staple due to its flexibility, resilience and ease of use. A long-held misconception about the inability for radar waves to be propagated through water, however, has limited its application. Recent work has debunked this myth. This project builds on these studies to firmly establish the potential for WPR as a survey method. Through investigation of three Neolithic crannogs this project will test WPR effectiveness and make the process for data acquisition and interpretation transparent.
Blin-Rolland, Armelle Dr SRG22\220097
Bangor University
Narratives of a More-than-human France, 1945 to Today: Space, Environment, Resistance
Value awarded: £6205.4
Abstract: This project opens a reflection on the place of Modern Languages in the Environmental Humanities. It investigates the relationship between narrative, space and the environment in France since 1945, with a focus on ‘hyper-sites’ (nuclear sites, factory farms, slaughterhouses, zoos, toxic landscapes). It aims to analyse the cultural narratives and spatial dynamics that have shaped relationships to the nonhuman in contemporary France, and modes of resistance against anthropocentric, gendered, (neo-)colonial, nationalistic and capitalist divisions of space. The corpus comprises a range of media, as well as scientific writings, direct action, political discourse and material sites. The project develops a French ecocriticism that questions what ‘French’ means from multispecies, ecofeminist and eco-decolonial perspectives, in exposing and contesting environmentally unjust narratives, and promoting modes of understanding and sharing territory as more-than-human. Beyond the French context, this leads to a consideration of the role of Modern Languages in collective action towards sustainability.
Bonetti, Francesca Dr SRG22\221507
University of the Arts London
Turning a crisis into an opportunity: fashion business resilience linked to technological innovation
Value awarded: £9650
Abstract: Companies able to turn the pandemic crisis into a viable opportunity are the ones manifesting agility and resilience by fully embracing technological innovation. Given that the fashion industry is worth £28 billion to the UK creative economy with a $1.5 trillion global value in 2021, the fashion industry offers a vital context for research on technological innovation following the pandemic shock. This project aims to investigate fashion businesses’ capacity for resilience stemming from the extent to which they have committed to technological innovation (focusing on distribution channels and involving forms of technologies for product try out and that contribute to product and/ or service availability to the final consumer). The research findings will contribute to an overall conceptual model of resilience based upon technological innovation that will be of use to the UK fashion industry and the innovation of their future practices.
Bose, Arpita Dr SRG22\220345
University of Reading
Cross-linguistic Investigation of Agrammatism in South-Asian Languages
Value awarded: £9,890
Abstract: Similarities and differences amongst languages impact manifestation of linguistic deficits in agrammatism in aphasia, a severe language production breakdown characterised by linguistically simplified or ungrammatical sentences with impoverished lexicon and morphology (difficulty with inflections and derivations). Agrammatism research has been primarily focused on English, and this limits our theoretical and applied cross-linguistic knowledge of the deficit. Our project represents a pioneering attempt to undertake research in under-explored South-Asian languages. We will collect data in India from individuals with aphasia to determine the influence of cross-linguistic variation in agrammatic features from two language families, Indo-Aryan (Bengali, Hindi) vs. Dravidian (Kannada, Malayalam). We will establish a linguistic framework to capture cross-linguistic differences. This project builds on existing collaborations and develop new research networks with colleagues in the Global South. Our methods and results will have significant implications for researchers undertaking cross-linguistic research in linguistic impairments, and for clinicians in developing language-specific assessments.
Boyle, Karen Professor SRG22\221390
University of Strathclyde
Trigger Warnings?: Dealing with gender-based violence in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences classrooms
Value awarded: £9,978.06
Abstract: Trigger and content warnings are part of public space. Potentially triggering content, including that related to gender-based violence, suicide, and racist violence, is flagged for audiences on social media, in festival programmes, or through pre-broadcast announcements. This has raised questions about how to prepare students for potentially triggering content in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences classrooms, including in the teaching of fiction and entertainment media, as well as in the study of social welfare and policy development. What student-survivors actually need and/or expect in the classroom has, however, rarely been investigated. Issues are complicated by the fact that in much public debate, trauma, distress and offence have been unhelpfully grouped together. Focusing on gender-based violence, this research will gather information on current practice and investigate staff and student-survivor experiences and needs, to ask what trauma-informed curricula might look like.
Buser, Michael Dr SRG22\220841
University of the West of England, Bristol
Ecologies of Water-Care in the Himalaya – water security and climate adaptation in Changthang, Ladakh.
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: This research investigates the relations between climate change, water security, culture, and society in the Himalaya. An interdisciplinary team of artists, climate experts, and social scientists will work with people living in the Changthang region of Ladakh, India to examine: 1) water resource challenges and trends, 2) cultural and lifestyle changes, and 3) adaptive responses. The research will explore these themes through the lens of ‘water-care’. This frame highlights the interdependencies that facilitate water security. These include, for example, the environment (e.g., glaciers), water infrastructures, management practices, culture, and ways of life. By exploring this rich ‘ecology’ via interdisciplinary, community and arts-led research, the project will generate new knowledge in the area of climate adaptation in a fragile and changing environment. The work will also set the stage for future engagement and collaboration through the creation of a Ladakhi Interdisciplinary Water Security Network.
Butler, Luke Dr SRG22\220366
University of Nottingham
Transforming Public Procurement after BREXIT: Harnessing the Power of the Devolved Administrations
Value awarded: £6,209
Abstract: Public procurement constitutes one third of all UK public expenditure (£300BN). Whilst a devolved power for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, central Government has exercised significant control as procurement has mainly been regulated by EU law to open public contracts to EU-wide competition. UK-wide Regulations were adopted to ensure conformity. Consequently, procurement rules, policies and practices within devolved administrations (to the extent permitted) have been neglected in research terms despite their diverse objectives and insights for developing best procurement practice. Further, post-Brexit, central Government proposes to “transform” procurement with new objectives and rules, raising pressing questions for devolution not least about future alignment and divergence. Bringing together leading stakeholders from academia, government and practice, this project is the first to systematically investigate rules, policies and practices across all four corners of the UK. This is vital if the UK is to realise an inclusive and truly transformative public procurement vision.
Butler, Christina Dr SRG22\221106
Kingston University
A New Understanding of Job Demands-Resources Theory through Career Turning Points
Value awarded: £9985
Abstract: Drawing on the sociology of turning points, this project aims to identify the triggers for a move towards a more sustained approach to career of individuals working under conditions of high job demands, such long hours, time pressure, physicality, and emotional burden. Building on Job Demands-Resources theory, I will study individuals who have experienced “a turning point” in their careers and identify the antecedents of the change. Additionally, I aim is to determine whether these turning points are internally (psychologically) or externally (environmentally) driven. Following from the first two aims, I also hope to generate insights into the extent to which turning points are randomly generated. I will conclude by making recommendations for practice by comparing the career strategies of those whose well-being has been transformed through turning points with the approaches to well-being at work currently recommended in the literature.
Calabrese, Joseph Dr SRG22\221304
University College London
Culture as Therapy: Researching Karma in Bhutan
Value awarded: £9598.37
Abstract: What constitutes the emotional power of culture? Prominent theories view cultures as shared representations of the world or systems of ideology rationalizing power relations. I will draw on newly collected data from Bhutan and existing fieldnotes from Haiti and Native North America, integrating anthropological and psychological perspectives, to develop an alternative theory of cultures as embedding systems of therapy in shared narratives. I will publish a book and at least one co-authored journal article exploring the ubiquity of the therapeutic in human societies, with implications for how broadly we define therapy. This therapy-focused, emotion-centred culture theory will elucidate the continuing emotional intensity of ethnocentrism, fundamentalism, and culture clashes in the 21st century. A central component of this project is a 2–3-month period of anthropological fieldwork in Bhutan, a developing South Asian country, to gather relevant data. Requested funds will cover transportation to Bhutan and employ a Research Assistant.
Cane, Tam Dr SRG22\221406
University of Sussex
Developing and piloting an anti-racist framework for decision-making in transitioning children from minoritised racial and ethnic groups into transracial adoptive families (AFDiT).
Value awarded: £9,869.86
Abstract: The shortage of Black and Asian prospective adopters contributes to children from minoritised ethnic groups remaining longer in care or being adopted transracially. Research, particularly looking at experiences of Black children raised in transracial adoptive families, identifies long-term problems around racial identity, internalised colour blindness and difficulties in dealing with racism. It is unclear what anti-racist frameworks social workers use to support decision-making in adoption transitions for minoritised ethnic children. This research will involve developing an anti-racist framework for decision-making in transitioning minoritised ethnic children into transracial adoptive families (AFDiT). The purpose is to improve professional practice and promote children's long-term outcomes around racial identity. AFDiT will be co-created and piloted through focus groups with social workers, adopted adults from a minoritised ethnic group, adoptive parents and foster carers involved in the adoption transition. A training session with social workers will facilitate professional development and feedback to enhance AFDiT.
Casselden, Biddy Dr SRG22\220441
Northumbria University
Bridging the digital divide: The contribution of public libraries to facilitating older people’s digital literacy and inclusion in an increasingly digital society.
Value awarded: £9,821.26
Abstract: The growth of a digital society provides several challenges for those sectors of the population experiencing digital poverty, particularly older people. They often lack the necessary equipment, skills, and desire to be fully digitally engaged, and thus risk exclusion, isolation, and marginalisation.
Public libraries are venues that can provide community members, such as older people, with an avenue to the digital world. This project will (i) explore how digital literacy is facilitated by public libraries in Northeast England; (ii) investigate the benefits and challenges of such provision for public libraries identifying best practice, and (iii) consider how digital literacy development and support changes lives for older people through enhancement of well-being and social belonging. By answering these questions, we can help build better community support for older people’s digital literacy and strengthen the role of public libraries in supporting social and digital inclusion.
Castellvi, Luis Dr SRG22\220376
University of Manchester
The Philippines in the Making: Spanish Transpacific Chronicles (1590-1621)
Value awarded: £9,910
Abstract: Anchored in the emerging field of Pacific Rim Studies, “The Philippines in the Making” will argue that literature in Spanish about Asia rearranges the alleged peripheries and centres of the early modern world in drastic ways. Through archival research and comparative readings, this project will build on the understanding of Renaissance and Baroque Spanish literature as having not only a transatlantic but also a transpacific dimension, reframing it within the orbit of globalisation. As the first attempt to examine the chronicles from the Spanish East Indies, “The Philippines in the Making” will cross spatial and temporal boundaries. The resulting monograph, which will draw on global studies and postcolonial theory, will also analyse the political use of history in the late Spanish colonial era of the Philippines. Its implications will extend beyond the Hispanic world to inform broader discussions about colonial literature, transnational history, and transitions from colonial to postcolonial regimes.
Celik Katreniak, Dagmara Dr SRG22\221123
City, University of London
Online games to combat health misinformation and vaccine hesitancy
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic made vaccine hesitancy the focus of global attention and concern and was listed as a global health threat by the WHO. In theory, a perfectly coordinated collective action can result in disease eradication. In reality, the "wait-and see" strategy and self-centric behaviour preclude the elimination of COVID-19. Moreover, the "infodemic" around COVID-19 resulted in a WHO's call for increased resilience against misinformation. In this project, we propose developing and testing the impact of two online games designed around empathy and misinformation training to increase vaccination intentions. Gamified interventions have become popular in recent years, but the evidence remains scarce. Therefore, our results will contribute to the discussion about digital media's role in strengthening vaccine confidence. Later, the games can be translated into multiple languages, finetuned to fit other vaccine-preventable diseases or more specific audiences or used in nationwide interventions. Our research has important policy implications.
Chapman, Sarah Dr SRG22\220960
King's College London
Noticing the nocebo effect: Do people who attend to their bodies and to drug information report more negative treatment effects?
Value awarded: £9,974.13
Abstract: The nocebo effect, whereby treatment side effects arise from the psychosocial context rather than pharmacological action, is common. Theories suggest the nocebo effect may partly arise due to attentional processes. Those who fear treatment harm may avoid specific side effect information and focus attention on their body after taking treatment, predisposing them to detect bodily sensations and then label them as side effects. There is a lack of research on attention and the nocebo effect. We will recruit 135 people into a sham trial of a 'supplement' (placebo) and assess their attention to a)bodily sensations (using the somatic signal detection task) and b)a mock patient information leaflet (using eye tracking methods). We hypothesise that people who look for longer at side effect information and report more bodily sensations will be more likely to report nocebo side effects. This work has implications for the provision of treatment information to patients.
Chatzitheochari, Stella Dr SRG22\220500
University of Warwick
The Intersectional Effects of Disability and Social Class on Becoming NEET
Value awarded: £7,138.24
Abstract: Disabled children and young people are at high risk of becoming NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) in early adulthood. Persisting medical understandings of disability typically interpret this risk as an inevitable consequence of individual conditions and/or impairments. As a result, we know little surrounding the social processes that are implicated in disability-related educational and occupational disadvantage experienced by disabled young people. Furthermore, existing studies have largely adopted monolithic understandings of disability, disregarding impairment-specific barriers and stigmas, as well as intersections with social class status, which may have critical implications for NEET outcomes. Adopting an intersectional lens, this project will rectify omissions in existing research by investigating processes of becoming NEET among physically disabled young people from low social class backgrounds. We will will highlight overlooked processes of social reproduction, whilst encouraging a move beyond single-axis analyses of disability-related inequalities in future social stratification and employment research.
Chen, Xuechen Dr SRG22\220227
New College of the Humanities
Understanding China’s role as a norm-shaper in cyberspace governance
Value awarded: £7,580
Abstract: With information communication technologies (ICT) penetrating all aspects of human activities, concerns over cyberspace practices have become central to achieving a consensus on an international agenda for cyberspace governance. Therefore, cyberspace governance has become a global priority not only for nation-states and international organisations but also for industry and users in general, and it has had a transformative impact on domestic and international politics. In the last two decades, there has been increasing research interest in global cyber governance and cybersecurity politics, leading to a heated debate over ‘whose ideas matter’ in the construction of cyber norms at the global level. This project will investigate China’s role as a norm-shaper in cyberspace governance by uncovering the processes of China’s norm construction and norm diffusion in data governance and cybersecurity.
Chircop, Justin Dr SRG22\220494
Lancaster University
Firm-Level Political Risk and Corporate Misconduct
Value awarded: £7,400
Abstract: Firm-level political risk leads to a reduction in employment and investment, yet whether it has any consequences in the form of corporate misconduct is largely unknown. The goal of our research program is to examine the effects of political risk at the firm level on corporate misconduct. In conducting our analysis we take advantage of a newly developed and comprehensively validated measure of firm-level political risk by Hassan et al. (2019) and unique data on corporate misconduct gathered by the Violation Tracker US. We aim to examine the relationship between firm-level political risk and corporate misconduct using a regression analysis with a tight fixed effects structure and to establish causality by using the redrawing of electoral districts as an exogenous shock. Furthermore, we aim to identify channels through which political risk affects corporate misconduct and circumstances that mitigate this relationship.
Cini, Michelle Professor SRG22\220160
University of Bristol
The Politics of the UK's post-Brexit Subsidy Regime
Value awarded: £9,109.65
Abstract: State aid policy was one of the most contentious issues during the UK-EU trade negotiations of 2020. The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed in December that year offered a compromise, allowing for the setting up of a new UK framework for subsidy control.This project will track UK subsidy control policy over its first year, from 1 May 2022 to 30 April 2023, to investigate the factors that drive policy change.The research will analyse both the new UK (English, Scottish and Welsh) subsidy control regime, as set out in the UK Subsidy Control Act, and the Northern Irish-EU state aid regime, as determined by the "Northern Ireland Protocol" and EU law. It will ask to what extent domestic policy goals, domestic political preferences and international obligations explain the evolution of subsidy control in the UK over its first year.
Ciuk, Sylwia Dr SRG22\220638
Oxford Brookes University
Pathways to organisational inclusion when hybrid working: a multisensory study among newly employed home and international graduates
Value awarded: £9,632.96
Abstract: Hybrid working practices, combining office-based and virtual work arrangements, have become increasingly common since the Covid-19 pandemic, yet their implications on key organisational processes, such as organisational inclusion of newcomers, are yet to be explored. Entering an organisation is known to be a challenging, complex, and emotive process. These challenges are particularly pronounced for recent graduate newcomers who are yet to build effective integration strategies and even more so for graduates with nonstandard regional or foreign accents who may additionally face language, and related, forms of discrimination. Hybrid working is likely to exacerbate these challenges. This study therefore addresses the urgent need to deepen our understanding of pathways to organisational inclusion of home and international hybrid working graduates and organisational practices which foster and hamper this process. To achieve this aim, this study uses a combination of in-depth interviews with an innovative multisensory research methodology - Multimodal Experiential Mapping.
Clots-Figueras, Irma Professor SRG22\220558
University of Kent
Incumbency and Economic Development
Value awarded: £9,976
Abstract: Political incumbents in many countries have an electoral advantage, this means that they are more likely to be re-elected if they decide to re-contest for election. Why is this the case? Are they more effective in policymaking, and do they provide more benefits to citizens who elect them? Incumbents have more experience and connections, which could make them more effective, but this could have the opposite effect and facilitate corruption. Many countries impose term limits on politicians, to prevent entrenchment, but politicians subject to term limits display lower performance at the end of their mandates. In this research proposal I will analyse the effect of re-electing the incumbent on economic outcomes, as well as the mechanisms at play, using large datasets from India, a country without term limits. I will also investigate the link between incumbency, public good provision, and future electoral outcomes.
Cocksworth, Ashley Dr SRG22\220005
University of Roehampton
Listening for joy in an age of despair: The religious lives of older Christians
Value awarded: £9,940.55
Abstract: Joy is a basic human emotion with a correspondingly fundamental place in Christian theology. But what has it meant to feel joy in the context of pandemic despair? This project develops a theology of joy that takes seriously everyday experiences of joy among older (Anglican) Christians and the realities of despair in which these experiences have often been shaped. In the first phase of the project, we will curate a series of recorded conversations in the style of Radio 4’s ‘The Listening Project’ across four Anglican churches in the Diocese of Southwark, inviting pairs of older Christians to co-narrate pandemic experiences of joy. In the second phase, the inter-disciplinary research team will meet to analyse together and conversationally the recorded data with the aim of producing an affectively-driven theology of joy for an age of despair, capable of pushing discourse on joy to new levels of credibility and coherence.
Codsi, Steph Dr SRG22\220010
University of Bristol
Spies, Suspicion, and Sincerity in British Radical Literature (1790-1804)
Value awarded: £2,635
Abstract: My research will examine the representation of spies in British radical literature from 1790 to 1804, and how this literature sought to interrogate and adapt to a culture of suspicion that had emerged from state espionage and legislation. I show that radical principles of sincerity and truth were in complex tension with the systematic use of government spies and informers. I look at this pattern in a group of radical authors including William Blake, William Godwin, Thomas Paine, Charlotte Smith and John Thelwall. These authors’ works are often characterised by an interrogation of the spy figure, yet many radicals were themselves under suspicion of being or colluding with foreign spies. These authors, I argue, adapted to a spy culture by engaging in literary espionage (e.g. coded language, pseudonymous publications) which - though compromising sincerity - sought to maintain the free circulation of radical ideas under the radar and across borders.
Colas, Alejandro Dr SRG22\221303
Birkbeck, University of London
Work and Food Security in the UK: The Right to Food Across Household, Community and Workplace
Value awarded: £9,486.40
Abstract: Recent Food Foundation data recorded 7.3 million adults and 2.6 million children in UK households going without food or physically unable to get food in the past month. Among people accessing UK food banks are food workers themselves, as well as those on Universal Credit or affected by 'in-work poverty'. This project will generate new insights into the relationship between food inequalities and work in the UK, and consider how the right to food can be effectively enshrined in policy and legislation. By funding a special issue and accessible edited volume, and bringing scholars and practitioners together in four workshops, the project will identify the ways work patterns, earnings and everyday living conditions affect food security across household, community and workplace. The research will go beyond existing studies of the UK food crisis through a uniquely work-centered lens, which emphasises the sites and practices of food production and social reproduction.
Coyne, Iain Dr SRG22\220488
Loughborough University
Cyberbullying at Work: an extension of traditional bullying or a new threat?
Value awarded: £9,970
Abstract: Cyberbullying is a new hazard within the workplace, yet we have limited understanding of the impact cyberbullying has on the lives of employees. This proposal aims to enhance our understanding by examining whether cyberbullying is exerting a novel impact on employees’ lives, by assessing the extent of the relationship between traditional bullying and cyberbullying at work. Scholars propose a similarity or difference hypothesis in the relationship between cyberbullying and traditional bullying, but to date only a few, inconclusive studies have empirically tested these hypotheses. Via an online questionnaire, using a full-panel design over three time-points, this study aims to answer the question to what extent are traditional bullying and cyberbullying related similarly or differently to antecedents and outcomes? Should similar relationships emerge it would suggest cyberbullying is not a unique construct. This study will contribute significantly to the research agenda and help practitioners develop effective policy and practice.
Craddock, Nadia SRG22\220051
University of the West of England, Bristol
Racialised Discrimination, Body Image, and Disordered Eating: A Multi-Disciplinary Investigation in South Asian Women in the UK.
Value awarded: £9,959.42
Abstract: Racism and colourism – related forms of racialised discrimination based on race and skin shade respectively – are associated with body image concerns and disordered eating among South Asian women, yet little work has been done to understand these issues, particularly in a UK context. We aim to address this gap by fully situating South Asian women’s body image and eating concerns within a sociocultural context that shapes lived experiences in the UK. Through in-depth interviews with South Asian women, we will explore how racism and colourism manifest in their lives and how and why such experiences affect their relationships with their bodies. Based on these findings, we will develop a theoretical model that connects racialised discrimination with body image and disordered eating, which we will test in a large sample of South Asian women. Findings will inform the development of culturally sensitive eating disorder prevention programmes and clinical practice.
Crellin, Rachel Dr SRG22\221109
University of Leicester
From prestige to practice: shedding new light on Early Bronze Age gold through microwear and scanning electron microscope analysis.
Value awarded: £9,996.70
Abstract: Goldwork plays a central role in our understandings of Early Bronze Age Britain. It is found in some of the period’s most famous burials, apparently indicating the high-status of the deceased. Yet we often perceive gold with a modern eye, emphasising its aesthetic qualities and contemporary value. In contrast, this project will take a holistic scientific approach to goldwork. It will conduct high-power microwear analysis of 25 items, the first time this technique has been applied to gold from the British Bronze Age. Alongside this, Scanning Electron Microscopy will allow us to discover more about the diversity of gold metal pools used to make these objects. The project will also test new potential methodologies for analysis using X-Ray Fluorescence. This study will unlock new understandings of these objects, shedding light on the processes through which they were made and used, and exploring their role in the period.
Crisafulli, Benedetta Dr SRG22\221337
Birkbeck, University of London
Under influence? An investigation of social media influencers’ impact on followers’ affective consequences and wellbeing
Value awarded: £9,990.48
Abstract: Social media influencers are gaining prominence in the fast-changing digital environment. Businesses are vying to engage influencers for competitive advantage, while policy makers outline regulations on this continuously evolving phenomenon. Extant studies suggest beneficial effects of influencers’ engagement on businesses. Yet, as our prior research shows (1, 2), influencers can have counterintuitive effects under certain circumstances. Advancing research in the domain, we postulate that influencers elicit social comparisons by portraying idealised lifestyles and physical qualities. Social comparisons can create cognitive dissonance, with negative consequences on followers’ emotions and wellbeing. Findings will derive implications for organisations and policy.
(1)Crisafulli, B. et al. (2022). Competence is power: How digital influencers impact buying decisions in B2B markets. Industrial Marketing Management (In Press).
(2)Singh, J. et al. (2020). “To trust or not to trust”: The impact of social media influencers on the reputation of corporate brands in crisis. Journal of Business Research, 119,464-480.
Das, Kaustav Dr SRG22\220655
University of Leicester
The turnover rate of formal long-term care staff in the UK
Value awarded: £3,774
Abstract: This project aims to address the problem of the chronic shortage of long term care workers in the UK. We intend to develop a theoretical framework to identify the factors affecting the retention rate of the care workers, and test it in a series of empirical analysis using secondary data from Skills for Care, which collects detailed information on the care workers as well as their workplaces. Our research has important policy implications as it identifies novel instruments to tackle the urgent issue of retaining highly sought-after long-term care workers.
Diviák, Tomáš Dr SRG22\221288
University of Manchester
Understanding the dynamics of criminal networks: application of statistical network models to criminal network data
Value awarded: £9,820
Abstract: Criminal networks are dynamic – actors join and leave, relations and interaction arise and dissolve. These changes affect the functioning of criminal networks, particularly their ability to adapt to changing environment. This is important to consider in relation to interventions against criminal networks, as such interventions may trigger negative unintended consequences by strengthening the disrupted network instead of its incapacitating. Yet, relatively little is known about criminal network dynamics due to paucity of data and applicable methods. This project aims to advance the research on criminal network dynamics by applying newly developed statistical models for network data to previously collected dynamic network data. In three studies, the project will bring original findings and methodological advances for both scientific understanding of criminal networks as well as for designing efficient interventions against them.
Dodd, Emlyn Dr SRG22\220569
British School at Rome
Towers, kilns, and agricultural networks in the ancient Cyclades: a multidisciplinary survey
Value awarded: £9,798
Abstract: Ancient Greek rural contexts remain emphatically understudied. Scholarship has built an impressive understanding of urban environs, but knowledge is often spuriously extrapolated into the countryside. Less is known for rural island contexts and agricultural production. This project will investigate production complexes at the archaeological sites of the Palaiopyrgos tower and Xifara on the island of Paros (Greece). It will use a developed methodology of combined non-invasive survey techniques, including Ground-Penetrating Radar, magnetometry, laser-scanning, and aerial imaging to investigate structures about which little is known. By using this rural island context and methods, the results will contribute significant new data to the study of rural economies, land use and occupation in Greece, helping to correct currently skewed understanding. The final datasets and models will play a crucial role in recording Greek cultural heritage under threat in island contexts with the ability to contribute to local museum displays and educational programs.
Edhan, Omer Dr SRG22\220559
University of Manchester
Multi-dimensional social learning
Value awarded: £9,900
Abstract: In many real life decision making situations, strategies have several ‘dimensions’, each having its own characteristics or traits. The vast majority of the social learning and evolutionary games literature doesn’t capture this complexity, either by assuming that the learning process is one-dimensional or by ignoring the strategic implications that others’ actions have on a decision maker. The proposed research will develop a multidimensional social learning theory that will take into account the multidimensionality of strategic behaviour. In this new theory, various traits can be learned and recombined from different mentors across different strategic dimensions. This theory will be applied to study and explain experimental and empirical findings indicating deviations in practice from the predictions of ‘standard' economic theory and evolutionary game theory, and will advise the design of new empirical explorations.
Edwards, Michael SRG22\221356
University of Cambridge
Jesus and the revolution: Theologies of solidarity from the Burmese highlands to the American heartland
Value awarded: £9,200
Abstract: Myanmar’s 2021 coup has had profound implications for the country’s growing diaspora, many of whose members now rally to support the revolution unfolding in the coup’s wake. The mobilisation of the diaspora’s Christian Chin members, whose hometowns near the Indian border are sites of intense resistance and repression, is striking. This project explores the longstanding religious networks that a new generation of Chin refugees traverse—networks connecting Myanmar's Chin Hills to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Following circulations of people and prayers between the Burmese highlands and the American heartland, it asks: What forms of solidarity emerge from the theological ground of transnational and diasporic religion? How are these shaped by debates about politics, providence, and prayer? An ethnographic study of Chin religious life in Tulsa, this project furthers current scholarly moves to rethink entanglements between transnational and diasporic religious formations; to reconsider anthropology’s relationship with theology; and to theorise emerging visions of solidarity.
Egan, Helen Dr SRG22\221169
Birmingham City University
Investigating barriers and facilitators for Health Care professionals in utilising mindfulness interventions to improve psychosocial difficulties in eating behaviours for people with Cystic Fibrosis
Value awarded: £9,888
Abstract: Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a life-limiting, progressive autosomal recessive inherited disorder caused by defects in a recessive gene, the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) increasing the production of thick, sticky mucus and impairs the functioning of the respiratory tract and impacts on digestive system organs leading to the maldigestion and malabsorption of nutrients. Symptoms impact strongly on eating behaviours and nutritional and weight status which is closely linked to respiratory status. There is little research on eating experiences and behaviours, recent research has explored mindful eating practices to gain a fuller understanding of eating behaviours and to develop bespoke interventions adapted to the experiences of people with CF (PwCF) which support psychological wellbeing alongside improved eating behaviours. Research demonstrates a lack of healthcare professional (HCP) knowledge and experience in mindful eating. The present study aims to investigate the experiences of HCPs using bespoke mindful eating interventions for PwCF.
Engelmann, Lukas Dr SRG22\221168
University of Edinburgh
Tabulating Epidemics: Tables as Tools of Reasoning in the History of Epidemiology 1896-1940.
Value awarded: £9,012.26
Abstract: The project will investigate the impact of tabulation practices and visualisations in the emergence of modern epidemiology (1896-1940). The hypothesis of the project is that tabulation practices, including ways of visualising data through different table forms, have specifically shaped the research, communication, and epistemology of modern epidemiological reasoning. As a form of collecting, organising and presenting epidemiological data, tabulation has enforced processes of standardisation and classification. As visual devices, tables have enabled epidemiologists to communicate the comparison of populations and they established multi-factorial association as a hallmark of modern epidemiology. Tables and their associated practices were thus a pivotal ingredient in the epoch-defining transformation of epidemiology from a narrative and historical practice into a field based on formal mathematics, models, data, and quantification.
Erikainen, Sonja Dr SRG22\220782
University of Aberdeen
Ignorance and precarious knowledges: the clitoris in the late 20th century
Value awarded: £7,833
Abstract: It is nearly universally accepted that the clitoris is a crucial anatomical component of sexual pleasure. Yet, it is scientifically and socially under-researched, and its socially taboo and politically precarious nature has made it an object of ignorance and multiple partial and incomplete knowledges at different times. This project examines cultural and medical discourses around the clitoris in the late 20th century. It will map mainstream scientific knowledge and ignorance about the clitoris, and feminist health discourses that produced alternative knowledge about women’s sexual bodies, as well as the relationship between these two spheres of knowledge about this controversial organ of sexual pleasure. This will shed new light not only on the clitoris itself but also on wider questions about how socio-cultural and political factors shape what we know, do not know, or know only incompletely, helping us to understand the relationship between medical and alternative knowledge, ignorance, and politics.
Etheridge, Ben Dr SRG22\221343
University of Essex
Worker Adaptation to Working from Home during and after Covid-19
Value awarded: £9,700
Abstract: Almost certainly the largest change to working lives since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the dramatic increase in working from home (WFH). As the pandemic ends, such working practices have continued, mainly in the form of ‘hybrid work’ (part-time at home, and part-time in the office). Recent evidence indicates that these practices will likely persist into the long term. Even modest changes in the location of work will have potentially significant implications for society as a whole. In this project we will contribute to the nascent literature on the determinants and effects of WFH as an alternative work practice. We will do this by assessing i) factors affecting productivity while working from home, ii) the role of productivity and other experiences in determining worker location during and after the pandemic. We will do this using unusually rich, novel and under-explored data from the UK.
Evans, Joel Dr SRG22\220354
University of Nottingham
Visions of the Collective: Democracy and the Eclipse of the Individual in 21st Century Fiction
Value awarded: £4,727.75
Abstract: It is almost a truism today that democracy is under threat. However, despite representative politics having been altered fundamentally, digital technologies make free expression and organisation easier than ever, and democratic movements have proliferated. This project will uncover the role of fiction in this paradoxical conjuncture by demonstrating how narrative in the twenty-first century shapes our idea of democracy. It will unearth how the development of our historical and contemporary ideas of democracy are implicated with the development of fictional forms, focusing on key areas such as representation, “high” and “low” culture, and the individual. It will analyse a preoccupation in the twenty-first century with depicting ways of organising and living collectively. These visions of the collective will constitute the lens through which the project views the status of the democratic ideal within contemporary fiction and culture, thus becoming the first project of its kind.
Ferrari, Elisabetta Dr SRG22\220713
University of Glasgow
Digital Mutual Aid: A comparative analysis of activism in the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States
Value awarded: £9,824.88
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic was met by an extraordinary grassroots mobilization of citizens who came together to help each other through mutual aid. This truly global effort, mediated by digital technologies, and with the involvement of many people who were entirely new to activism, is changing how we conceptualize the role of mutual aid. What are the politics of mutual aid? What is the role of mutual aid in contemporary societies? How can digital technologies support mutual aid? This project takes a unique comparative approach to examine mutual aid, by looking at differences and similarities across the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States. Through an analysis of digital data about mutual aid groups and in-depth interviews with activists, the project will analyse and compare activists' conceptualizations of mutual aid and its political meaning in/after the pandemic; it will also assess the role of digital technologies in these mutual aid projects.
Fischer, Eugen Dr SRG22\220454
University of East Anglia
Fragmented beliefs: Challenging appeals to ‘common sense’?
Value awarded: £9,343.15
Abstract: Appeals to common sense are common in philosophy and public discourse. But is there even any such thing as ‘the’ common sense view? A radical new challenge to such appeals arises from psychological findings about ‘belief fragmentation’: Different cognitive processes generate conflicting beliefs; these are stored in different ‘belief fragments’ which are never systematically screened for coherence. Fragmentation has been found across a wide range of beliefs: e.g., about disease, God, and death. Fragmentation frequently leads people to harbour conflicting beliefs about the same thing – so there is no such as ‘the’ common-sense conception of it, to which one could appeal. We examine this ‘fragmentation challenge’ in the context of ordinary beliefs about vision, which have shaped long-standing philosophical debates about perception. Three studies document relevant belief conflicts, study their persistence, identify cognitive traits modulating the conflicts, and explore the profound consequences for philosophical method and our rational self-image.
Fitzpatrick, Daniel Dr SRG22\221243
University College London (UCL)
Towards Trusting Communities: Principles of Community Ownership and Stewardship
Value awarded: £9,478.58
Abstract: The Levelling Up White Paper (February 2022) reaffirmed the community ownership pledges made in the 2019 Conservative Party Manifesto by committing to enhance the Community Ownership Fund and the Community Asset Transfer and Assets of Community Value schemes. Similarly, Labour's Covenant 2022 has propositions around community and co-operative ownership.
However, there is already a vast wealth of knowledge at a community level around the benefits and challenges around community ownership. Yet, communities’ ability to take control depend on the reform of existing and the introduction of new legislation, along with infrastructure and support to grow the community owned sector.
To address this deficit, we need to discover what is meant by community ownership in England and the rest of the UK. What are the common principles of governance, and what are the common strategic objectives held, by community owners, especially the larger community owners.
Fleming, Valerie Professor SRG22\220791
Liverpool John Moores University
Falling between the cracks: conscientious objection to abortion
Value awarded: £9,333.90
Abstract: Invoking conscientious objection (CO) to abortion in clinical practice often becomes the centre of debate. Confusion abounds amongst nurses, midwives, pharmacists and doctors regarding their understanding of CO and the extent to which they can object to abortion on conscience grounds. It impacts negatively on both objecting and non-objecting healthcare professionals, the organisations in which they practise and service users. A national picture of health professionals’ understanding of CO to abortion is urgently required, thus we have developed an online questionnaire using findings from our previous qualitative study. Our output will be the first known validated questionnaire on CO in the world which can thereafter be administered to a large UK based sample of health practitioners. Questionnaire results can then be used to develop national guidelines for health professionals on CO to abortion and can be used to contribute to governments seeking to amend the Abortion Act.
Fliers, Philip Dr SRG22\220122
Queen's University Belfast
The History of Corporate Networks in the UK
Value awarded: £9,814
Abstract: How have corporate networks in the UK evolved? What role has the financial sector played in these networks? How did corporate networks facilitate cartels and anti-competitive behaviour? Did well networked firms perform better? To address these questions, this project will collect the names of all board members of all stock-market listed firms between 1890 and 2020. We will then collect financial statements and survival information for the firms that represent the most interconnected part of the network in every year. Finally, by combining these datasets and using a suite of networks analysis and econometric tools, we will able to understand the microfoundations and microconsequences of corporate network evolution in the UK.
Folit-Weinberg, Benjamin Dr SRG22\220993
University of Bristol
Tiresias: A Natural Language Processing and data visualization tool for Sophocles’ plays
Value awarded: £9998.50
Abstract: Scholars have long recognized that Sophocles repeats thematically important words and that studying these repetitions offers fundamental insights into his plays. At present, however, this process is time-consuming, unsystematic, and the significance of specific repetitions is not always clear. This project will develop a multifunctional digital tool, Tiresias, to analyse Sophocles’ language.
Natural Language Processing techniques can identify verbal patterns immediately, quantify them precisely, and, through good data visualization, facilitate their interpretation. Funding will be used to create a multifunctional tool, Tiresias, that fulfills these goals. Tiresias will be made available for free online, creating valuable digital infrastructure for the field.
This project is a path-breaking contribution in its own right. It also has vast potential beyond the study of Sophocles. It is thus also a pump-priming endeavour; one major goal of the project is to explore the applicability of Tiresias across and beyond the corpus of Classical Athenian drama.
Frey, Mattias Professor SRG22\221108
City, University of London
White Audience Demand for Black and Muslim Film Casting
Value awarded: £9,817
Abstract: Film has become a focal point of cultural discussions of systematic racism. Parallel to the Black Lives Matter and #OscarsSoWhite movements, scholars have empirically demonstrated serious inequalities of ethnic diversity in film production and representation. However, audience demand for diverse films is less well understood. Industry elites have rationalised their exclusion of people of colour as actors because of their belief that ‘mass audiences’ (White, non-urban and/or international) will not pay to see diverse films. Undertaking a mixed-method qualiquantitative audience study, this project seeks to understand the extent and reasons for White audiences’ (lack of) preferences for films with Black and Muslim actors (in particular, vis-à-vis other characteristics besides ethnicity and religion, esp. awareness and perceived attractiveness); how different White audiences’ levels of film consumption inflect preferences; and the discourses that White audiences use to rationalise their (lack of) preference for Black and Muslim casting.
Gaffney, Dylan Dr SRG22\221102
University of Oxford
Human Adaptive Flexibility and Ecological Transformation during the Initial Human Colonisation of Oceania
Value awarded: £9,970
Abstract: This project explores the behavioural dynamics underlying one of the greatest migrations in human history: our species’ dispersal from Eurasia into Oceania over 50,000 years ago. Palaeolithic seafarers ventured eastwards, pushing through major biogeographic thresholds, eventually arriving in Oceania where they encountered radically new ecologies. The timing, route, and nature of Oceania’s initial colonisation are hotly debated, including whether people followed a northern route into New Guinea, or a southern route into Australia. To test the timing and direction of colonisation, I will undertake excavation on Salawati Island, at Oceania’s northern gateway. Radiometric dating will determine age of initial colonisation and subsequent occupation. Analyses of excavated material (stone tools, animal bone) will explore the nature of people’s behaviours: the colonists’ technological and subsistence practices and how Oceanians adapted their behaviours, and transformed their ecologies, through time. The results will be critical for understanding global population history and human adaptive capacities.
Ganassin, Sara Dr SRG22\220406
Newcastle University
Exploring the experiences of highly-skilled refugee women in the UK: An intersectional approach
Value awarded: £6,612
Abstract: The process of integration in a new society as a refugee entails a number of challenges, notably trauma, poverty, and social isolation. Crucially, a small but significant group of displaced people are highly-qualified professionals — engineers, academics and doctors, for example — who are either prevented from seeking paid employment which matches their professional backgrounds or are forced by their new circumstances into low-skilled jobs for which they may be profoundly over-qualified. Women are further disadvantaged, and yet, their experiences have been neglected by researchers and policy makers. This project investigates double layered issues of displacement and discrimination on the ground of gender, language, ethnicity and, often religion. In collaboration with a women's grassroot group based in Leeds, we will explore the experiences of highly-skilled refugee women with a focus on their journeys to re-employment. The study’s outcomes will have significance for refugees such as the Ukranians.
Garrett, Neil Dr SRG22\220189
University of East Anglia
Choosing what information to send: an empirical approach to understanding motivations for information sharing
Value awarded: £9612.48
Abstract: Identifying why individuals decide to share information is key to understanding how information diffuses in a social network. This proposal will pilot a new experimental framework, the information sharing task, to examine two core factors that motivate sharing information - (1) the degree to which information confirms beliefs and (2) information accuracy - and test whether the role of these factors varies according to the diversity of beliefs present in a network. The framework takes an approach widely used in behavioural economics to infer subjective value – binary choice – and adapts it in a completely new domain – information sharing. This enables us to quantify the relative importance individuals assign to distinct aspects of a piece of information and identify where inaccurate information is most likely to propagate. The approach and findings have the potential to inform interventions to attenuate information sharing where this has undesirable societal consequences.
Gilmore, Joanna Dr SRG22\220378
University of York
Lawyers at the Coalface: Legal Solidarity and the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike
Value awarded: £9,852
Abstract: The 1984-5 miners’ strike was the longest and most bitterly fought period of industrial action in British history. An extensive body of socio-legal scholarship has documented how the police, the courts, the welfare system and the security services were mobilised against the miners, leading to extensive social disruption and severe hardship within mining communities. Whilst the role of law and legal institutions in undermining the strike is well documented, the contribution of lawyers in furthering the miners' cause has not been explored in the academic literature to date. This socio-legal study will begin to fill this lacuna. Through a collaboration with National Life Stories at the British Library, the study will collate, analyse and archive for online public access, oral history interview recordings and transcripts with twenty-five lawyers and strike participants. The project outputs will coincide with the 40-year anniversary of the strike in 2024-5.
Graebner, Cornelia Dr SRG22\221443
Lancaster University
Building Critical Hope at the Autonomous Center for the Memory of 'Our América': Integrity, Solidarity, Care
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: This project works with the Academic Center for the Memory of Our América (CAMeNA) in Mexico City, to 1) record stories and voices implicitly present in its documentary collections, 2) formalize and solidify initiatives that emerged around material held by the CAMeNA, 3) disseminate the narrative of ‘critical hope’ emerging from the documents and practices. The documentary collections were assembled and gifted by individuals and groups involved in struggles for transformation in Latin America since the 1950s, eg. the 1950s land reform in Guatemala, liberation struggles in Central America, or exilic solidarity work in Mexico. These strategies combined the critical investigation and analysis of reality with actions for transformation; thus co-constructing what Paulo Freire termed ‘critical hope’: a critical, pro-active relationship to the future-as-possibility. The project contributes to the transgenerational building of critical hope at the CAMeNA, and consolidates the transatlantic relevance through initiatives in El Salvador and the UK.
Graham, Agnieszka Dr SRG22\220820
Queen's University Belfast
Mind Wandering and Metacognition in Children
Value awarded: £9358.30
Abstract: Mind wandering poses a serious threat to children’s learning. Failing to attend to instruction because of task-unrelated thoughts may impede children's chances of acquiring crucial skills or knowledge. The link between mind wandering and learning has been studied extensively in adult student populations. Yet, despite its clear educational significance, there is a striking evidence gap on the impact of mind wandering on learning in children. The proposed research will address this important research gap by conducting an examination of 5-8 year-olds’ meta-awareness of mind wandering and their understanding of how mind wandering can impact on learning. Outcomes of this work will provide a springboard for the development of new interventions geared toward detecting and refocusing lapses of attention in educational settings.
Grayson, Hannah Dr SRG22\220940
University of Stirling
Changing resilience: alternative vocabularies from the decolonial arts and humanities
Value awarded: £9,791
Abstract: This study will seek to foster an intercultural dialogue through two workshops and three conferences exploring the importance of ‘resilience’ and its colonial heritage. The project is based on a set of questions which interrogate the meanings and circulations of resilience discourse transnationally and in multiple public domains. It will draw out the theoretical and cultural assumptions behind the drive for resilience. It will then seek to establish a critical vocabulary of alternative terms from multiple languages to build understanding of culturally specific responses to so-called crisis. I am applying for a BA SRG to support the workshops and conferences that will bring together scholars working in critical theory, decolonial methodologies, and arts and humanities in this area.
Guidi, Marco SRG22\220913
University of Glasgow
The reshaping of Scottish football club’s governance and active fan shareholder engagement through shadow board arrangement: The case of Celtic PLC.
Value awarded: £9,000
Abstract: This research investigates the need for a shadow board at Celtic PLC (that owns Celtic Football Club) with its worldwide dispersed shareholders. The study will aim to engage the 28,000 small shareholders of Celtic PLC in a research survey to test their desire for a shadow board arrangement. The study will collaborate with Celtic affiliated organisations such as the Celtic Trust to increase the likelihood of small shareholders participating in the research survey. The research survey will be promoted through Celtic fan media and other communication channels. The study will also use Facebook ads to target the most difficult to reach small shareholders and thereby increasing further the likelihood of small shareholders engaging with the survey. Small shareholders engaging with the survey may initiate small shareholders to become active in the democratic governance of Celtic PLC through participation in the formation and in the election of a shadow board.
Guo, Vivienne Xiangwei Dr SRG22\220100
King's College London
New Self, New World: The French Language in the Making of Modern Chinese Intellectuals
Value awarded: £9,991
Abstract: Language is a means of seeing, thinking, representation, and action. As Wittgenstein put it, language is “a form of life.” Learning a foreign language is therefore a social, cultural, and epistemological activity of traversing from one form of life to another. Through such traverse, one sees a “new world” and becomes a “new self.” This project studies how Chinese intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries learned French as the first step towards engaging with Western science, technology, and culture. Further, it concerns how French language learning and using influenced their self-identification, self-representation, and self-expression. Consulting a variety of French and Chinese archives while exploring the rich but understudied corpus of literary and artistic works produced by China’s Francophile intellectuals, this project aims to appraise the role of the French language in shaping the world and the self of modern Chinese intellectuals.
Gupta, Abhimanyu Dr SRG22\220755
University of Essex
Nonlinear spatial dynamic panel data models
Value awarded: £9,981
Abstract: Spatial econometric models are convenient tools to capture interactions amongst economic agents. An attractive feature of these models is that interactions can occur across very general space, for example a social network. The proposed research will examine such models in a panel data setting, with a number of novel features: (1) The methods developed will allow for endogenous network links; (2) Dynamic features will be built into the model; (3) Many types of economic data are continuous but bounded in a certain range, and modelled by nonlinear transformations. An example is crime rates. Our methods will permit such data; (4) Networks often feature a 'central' member, namely a participant that exerts disproportionate influence. Our theory will allow for this.
The research will derive a suite of large sample theorems. Finite sample performance will be tested in simulations and the new methods applied to real data sets studying important economic problems.
Hannaford, Matthew Dr SRG22\220361
University of Lincoln
Climate history of nineteenth-century Mozambique
Value awarded: £8,184
Abstract: The proposed research will develop new climate histories for nineteenth century Mozambique using historical documentary records. Mozambique is both highly exposed and vulnerable to climatic extremes, yet the instrumental meteorological record of past climate variability is short, while studies of climate adaptation and disaster risk remain dominated by presentist approaches that scarcely account for long-term processes or histories of colonialism. Bringing together a team of experts in the environmental and climate history of Mozambique and southern Africa, this project aims to i) reconstruct seasonal rainfall variability and extremes prior to the systematic collection of instrumental meteorological data and ii) reveal how patterns of response to recurring climatic extremes were influenced by the expansion and intensification of colonial power during the nineteenth century. Academy funding will enable the project team to draw upon key archival collections in Britain, Portugal and Mozambique that are essential to meet these aims.
Heath, Deana Professor SRG22\221272
University of Liverpool
Rape, Policing, and the 'Law-Preserving' Violence of Colonial Rule in India
Value awarded: £9,802
Abstract: This project aims to reveal the role that rape and other forms of sexual violence committed by the Indian police played in the construction and maintenance of colonial rule in India. To do so it wil: explore the nature, and pervasiveness, of rape and other forms of sexual violence in colonial India and their role as a technology of colonial policing; interrogate the relationship between sexual violence and the culture and system of policing in colonial India; probe the ways in which the colonial state in India responded to the enactment of sexual violence by the Indian police, and the role such 'law-preserving' violence, to borrow from Walter Benjamin, played in subjugating Indians and maintaining colonial rule; and elucidate the constraints the colonial archive poses to making the history of sexual violence in colonial India visible and the voices of the victims of such violence audible.
Heaton, Timothy Dr SRG22\220289
University of Sheffield
Obtaining robust "dates-as-data" inference from the calibration of multiple radiocarbon determinations
Value awarded: £9,934
Abstract: The recent explosion in the availability of dates within archaeological science has ushered in a data science revolution. Computational analyses of large, collated sets of dates have the potential to provide unprecedented inference on our past, on rates of change, and on population dynamics. It is essential however that the methods underpinning these “big-data” analyses are rigorous and robust.
This concern is particularly relevant for radiocarbon dating, the archaeological method of choice for dating the last 55,000 years. Recent advances in measurement techniques have increased the number of potentially dateable radiocarbon samples on any archaeological site into the thousands. However, their need for calibration introduces considerable, and complex, uncertainties in our dates that must be incorporated into any inference.
This project will provide novel, statistically rigorous yet easily accessible, tools for the archaeological community that will allow better, and more robust, inference on large datasets of radiocarbon determinations.
Heise, Tatiana Dr SRG22\221365
University of Glasgow
The Politics of Trauma in Brazil's Testimony Clinics
Value awarded: £6,352
Abstract: Funds are sought to support the planning and development of an article provisionally titled ‘The Politics of Trauma in Brazil’s Testimony Clinics’, which will serve as the first step towards a larger collaborative project in the future. It will investigate socio-political approaches to trauma by focusing on Brazil’s Clínicas do Testemunho (Testimony Clinics 2013-2017), a programme of psychotherapeutic treatment for citizens affected by traumatic memories of state violence. Initially developed by the Brazilian Ministry of Justice in partnership with civil actors to support witnesses who testified at Brazil’s National Truth Commission (2011-2014), the project underwent significant changes in response to tensions and shortcomings identified by its participants. Through archival research and interviews with practitioners in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina and London, I will examine these changes while paying particular attention to what they tell us about the political use and misuse of traumatic memories.
Hilson, Gavin Professor SRG22\221361
University of Surrey
Innovating Informality: The Case of Artisanal Mining in Sub-Saharan Africa
Value awarded: £9950
Abstract: The proposed research will provide an extended analysis of the innovation trajectories of individuals engaged in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM)---low-tech, labour-intensive mineral extraction/processing---in sub-Saharan Africa. Recognizing that ASM is the most important rural nonfarm activity in the region, donors have put aside tens of millions of dollars in technical assistance to stimulate innovation in the sector. They have done so, however, assuming that those engaged in ASM in sub-Saharan Africa are in a position to 'scale-up' their operations, which is far from being the case. Most of those who operate in the sector do so informally, which means that their innovation trajectories are largely incompatible with the blueprint donors are pushing. A case study of Talensi District in Ghana, a country with one of the largest and more dynamic ASM sectors in sub-Saharan Africa, is used to shed light on why, and what must change.
Ioris, Antonio Dr SRG22\220991
Cardiff University
Guarani Beyond Borders: Healing Fragmentation and Sharing Indigeneity
Value awarded: £9,994
Abstract: Indigenous peoples have experienced a complex interplay of clashes, violence and resistance especially due to the advance of extractivism and agribusiness. This project seeks to expand previous research on the disputes between Guarani communities and agribusiness farmers in South America. The main aims are, first, to conduct participatory research in the Department of Amambay, in the east of Paraguay among the Pai Tavytera (a sub-group of the Guarani nation) and, second, to bring together Guarani representatives from Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay to share lessons learned from their struggle for land and opportunities. The first part will connect the Pai Tavytera with the Guarani-Kaiowa on the other side of the Brazil-Paraguay border (recently studied by the applicant). The second part will create a space for cross-border interaction, which will be invaluable for the formulation of collective demands and for the expansion of the theory and ethical-methodological approaches of indigenous geography.
Ironside, Rachael Dr SRG22\220994
Robert Gordon University
Talking about prisons: An investigation into the social practices that inform visitor engagement in prison museums
Value awarded: £9824.83
Abstract: Prison museums offer visitors the opportunity to learn about and engage with historic and contemporary issues of crime and punishment. Sites of penal history also present complex issues for heritage practitioners in balancing the sensitives of the prison’s past with the expectation of an enjoyable tourism experience. Previous scholarship has examined the complexities and nuances of the tourism experience, however, the social interaction that underpins visitor engagement at prison museums is absent. The aim of this study is to investigate the social practices that inform how visitors make sense of prison museum exhibits. Drawing on Conversation Analysis this research will examine video-recorded data of visitor interactions at four exhibits in Peterhead Prison Museum to examine how space, objects and other bodies inform sense-making practices. This study will further scholarship in dark tourism, social interaction and museum studies, and inform the design of the prison museum experience for heritage practitioners.
Ivandic, Ria Dr SRG22\220574
University of Oxford
Intergenerational cycles of violence: the effects of war on intimate partner violence
Value awarded: £7,088
Abstract: Conflict has long-lasting effects on its populations. It is suggested that trauma can be a trigger for unstable mental health and violent behaviour. Yet, the extent to which events trigger domestic violence and how they may lead to intergenerational cycles of violence remains less understood. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioural disorder that can develop due to exposure to a traumatic event, such as warfare, and PTSD is, in turn, positively associated with aggression perpetration (Shorey et al, 2012). In this research, I will examine how the heterogeneous exposure to violence during the most recent largest conflict in Europe, the Croatian War of Independence and Bosnian War, affected patterns of intimate partner violence decades after. With an emerging war in Ukraine, the importance of understanding the long-term gendered consequences of exposure to conflict becomes ever more crucial.
Jablonski, Ryan Dr SRG22\221392
London School of Economics and Political Science
The politics of who benefits from foreign aid and why
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: In many aid-dependent democracies, politicians are more likely to discuss public spending decisions with donors than with legislatures, voters, or special interests. These donor-politician interactions substantially alter public spending and foreign aid. Yet these interactions are rarely studied systematically or cross-nationally. In this research I study how donors and politicians interact to make spending decisions, and how the nature of these interactions vary across country and context. This grant will support several activities. First, this grant will fund the development and analysis of a cross-national dataset of subnational aid spending, and its relationship to sub-national electoral characteristics. Second, this will fund interviews donor staff working in the Malawi education and health sectors. Finally, this will fund a small workshop with top policymakers and academics working on aid delivery, and will ensure the policy advice and research insights from this research will have the highest possible impact.
Jeklic, Mihael Dr SRG22\221267
King's College London
Myside bias in legal advisers: Understanding and reducing role-induced myside bias in lawyers and beyond
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: Settlement is virtually always superior to litigation. Unnecessary litigation involves uncertainty, causes judicial backlog, wastes resources and increases societal conflict. A major contributor to the dearth of settlement agreements when these are possible are intransigent litigants and their legal counsel who harbour overly optimistic perceptions of the likely outcome in litigation, even though both sides are looking at an identical factual situation and applicable laws. I seek funding to conduct an interdisciplinary investigation into this phenomenon from the perspectives of law and cognitive psychology. Based on a pilot study I conducted in anticipation of this application, I propose to develop a comprehensive theoretical account of role-induced overoptimism in legal advisers, as well as design and investigate which debiasing techniques and cognitive capacities have the potential to constrain it. I expect that this research will have an impact on education and policy, and ultimately contribute to promoting settlement and reducing conflict.
Jones, Susan Dr SRG22\220081
University of Nottingham
Knit and Matter: material meaning making with amateur fibre craft
Value awarded: £9,242.88
Abstract: Knitting is a popular everyday activity with a long history as a creative meaning making process through which makers explore and express what matters to them. The dominance of reductive models of literacy in formal education and public services, along with the devaluing of craft, has meant that the significance of knitting for meaning making in contemporary everyday lives is not fully recognised. Neither is its potential as a way of understanding our material engagement with the world around us. This research will develop understanding of how knitting works as a meaning making practice through a series of collaborative workshops focused on the material process of making with yarn. It will contribute to the development of innovative theoretical tools for thinking about and researching knitting as an everyday literacy practice, offering a timely perspective on the role of the material in the meanings that matter and how they are made.
Kariel, Joel Mr SRG22\221421
University of Kent
The Sterling Effect: Evidence of Racial Discrimination in the English Football Labour Market
Value awarded: £8,197
Abstract: There is evidence of racial discrimination in terms of earnings across the labour market, but statistical testing for the presence of racial discrimination remains difficult. The football labour market represents a natural setting to study racial discrimination in earnings. To maximise shareholder profits, clubs should pay players according to their ability, to achieve the best possible performance. There is significant evidence of racism in British football, for example among fans, but we lack knowledge about equity in footballers’ earnings. Given the wide viewership of this elite sport and the potential impact young people’s understanding of society, analysis of the potential pay inequity and the drivers behind this is timely and necessary. Results will provide a better understanding of the mechanisms behind pay equity in general and on player-wage settings in elite sports specifically. This will influence the work of both social scientists and campaigners working on equality in sports.
Kars, Selen Dr SRG22\220182
University of the West of England, Bristol
Mind the Gap: Investigating the Transfer of Digital Capabilities from the Classroom to the Business in SMEs
Value awarded: £9,990
Abstract: Digital transformation is a game changer for businesses and economies. But SMEs, which play a major economic role, lag behind larger firms in developing digital capabilities. Learning factories, like management courses and skills training, have emerged as a popular initiative to address SMEs’ capability deficit. However, learning factories over-emphasise individual learning in digital capability development. Little attention is paid to the social, political, and cultural contexts of SMEs that impact transformation of that individual learning into organisational capabilities. This research thus investigates approaches SMEs take to facilitate organisational anchoring of digital capabilities gained through learning factories. This will be achieved through an 18-month collaborative inquiry that investigates SME practitioners’ digital capability development experiences. The results will benefit scholars interested in capability development and digital transformation in SMEs, and will enable policymakers and involved institutions to develop better evidence-based capability development schemes to improve digital transformation outcomes for SMEs.
Kelly-Corless, Laura Dr SRG22\220416
University of Central Lancashire
Life after prison: The journey back to the Deaf Community
Value awarded: £9,846.67
Abstract: This research explores the lives of culturally Deaf people after their release from prison. Despite there being an established literature on desistance from crime more generally, little is known about the desistance journeys of Deaf people. Evidence suggests that the Deaf community can respond with particular disapproval to crime and it is therefore possible that ex-prisoners may face exclusion from the Deaf community upon their release. Given the lack of research about the experiences of Deaf ex-prisoners, this study is exploratory in nature, and aims to establish a foundational knowledge base on the topic. The research will consist of interviewing 10 Deaf ex-prisoners about their experiences since leaving prison, and will also involve interviewing 10 service providers about their knowledge of the issues faced by Deaf ex-prisoners. The evidence generated through this research will develop academic knowledge and will be used to improve practice in relation to supporting Deaf ex-prisoners.
Kilby, Allaina Dr SRG22\221077
Swansea University
A Bad Influencer? An analysis of relationship and sex advice on Instagram.
Value awarded: £5,035
Abstract: Good quality relationship and sex education (RSE) is fundamental to the formation of positive relationships and our understanding of the social and physical aspects of sex. Newly established RSE accounts on Instagram have become a popular source of information that fills the knowledge gap left by school RSE curriculums and challenges the heteronormative representation of RSE in media advice columns.
Despite the prevalence of Insta-RSE accounts, there is no existing research that examines the quality of the information they publish to millions of young people. This project analyses these accounts from the perspective of service journalism to identify the extent to which they provide expert RSE advice that is accurate, inclusive and multifaceted. By establishing what constitutes best practice in digital RSE advice, this project has real-world impact by informing RSE educators, service journalists and sex-influencers about new approaches to RSE that will help improve young people’s sexual well-being.
Kindellan, Michael Dr SRG22\220410
University of Sheffield
Charles Olson and Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence, 1952-1970
Value awarded: £8,453
Abstract: We propose to prepare for publication a multivolume scholarly edition of the complete correspondence between Charles Olson (1910-1970) and Robert Creeley (1926-2005), two of the twentieth century’s most influential American poets. The correspondence, 1952-1970, is not only the most significant of each poet’s life, but ranks amongst the most valuable documents of postwar English-language poetics. In these letters, both writers develop collaboratively many of the ideas, assumptions and ideologies principal to the then-emergent avant-garde aesthetic now commonly referred to as “the new American poetry”. Our project, though absolutely original in output, is not without important precedent. It will, in fact, continue and complete work begun by George Butterick, and later Richard Blevins, who between 1980 and 1996 managed to publish an initial 10 volumes (covering 1950-1952). We aspire to honour this work by finishing it (in approximately 5 additional volumes), thereby completing a critical account of remarkable consequence.
Krüger Bridge, Simone Dr SRG22\220726
Liverpool John Moores University
The Social Value of Music Participation: Exploring the Impacts of Liverpool Cathedral's Music Outreach Programme in Post-Covid-19 Society
Value awarded: £9,583
Abstract: This project considers the social value of music participation in post-COVID-19 society to understand the differences music can make to people’s lives, studied through the case example of Liverpool Cathedral School of Music's music outreach programme, which annually engages more than 1500 children, young people and adults from the Northwest of the UK. It is based on evidence that music participation enhances self-confidence, self-esteem, relationship building, a sense of belonging and general wellbeing. This focus is important, timely and necessary, since research on the social value of music participation has surfaced only recently in the arts and humanities, and people's education, cultural engagement, and social and mental wellbeing has been adversely affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Using a combination of qualitative research methods, the project seeks to address whether, why and how music participation can have social value in the transition to post-COVID-19 society.
Laite, Julia Dr SRG22\220159
Birkbeck, University of London
Twisted Roots and New Stories: Settler Colonialism, Critical Family History, and the Troubled Inheritance of Place
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: Today, the founding fathers of colonialism are being taken down from their pedestals, and national, top-down histories are being challenged. This is equally true, but particularly complex, in Britain’s oldest colony, the Island of Newfoundland. Newfoundland is home to an marginalized and economically-depressed white settler population, and also the site of the near-total destruction of an indigenous culture and the environmental collapse of what was once the richest fishing ground on earth. This project will use the emerging framework of critical family history to explore what it means to have roots in a place that was charted by imperialism and marked by environmental and human exploitation. Through archival research and co-production workshops, it aims to discover what new stories family history might generate, how it may help us reckon with the harms and silences of colonialism, and how it might forge a new sense of belonging and place.
Lepori, Gabriele Dr SRG22\220800
University of Southampton
The relationships between employee health and stock market returns during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from Uber and taxi hospital rides in large cities
Value awarded: £9,908
Abstract: Research has documented that large stock market fluctuations have an immediate negative impact on investor health. For example, at the population level, large and sudden declines in major stock market indices lead to contemporaneous increases in insomnia, abdominal pain and hospitalisations. Existing studies have not been able to observe whether the individuals who experience these negative outcomes are precisely the individuals who have money at stake in the stock market. We fill this gap by focusing on a group of stakeholders, i.e., company employees, who have a large stake in the performance of their employer’s stock. By studying the number of taxi and Uber trips to local hospitals that originated from public companies headquartered in New York and London during the most recent COVID-19 crisis, this project intends to test whether large fluctuations in the price of a company’s stock have a negative effect on employee health and vice versa.
Linge, Ina Dr SRG22\220173
University of Exeter
Weimar Visions: Picturing Sexual Subjectivities
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: Why do we keep returning to the Weimar Republic as a focal point for queer and trans histories a century on? This network brings together international researchers from a variety of disciplines to explore the resonances of Weimar Germany’s visual and narrative queer mythologies today. Weimar Germany is widely considered as a golden age for queer culture and a period of relative rights and freedoms. Through a series of events and a journal special issue, we investigate how historical film, photography and narrative writing contributed to shaping this mythology of a particularly queer Weimar Germany. The initiative generates a fuller understanding of the twentieth-century emergence of queer and trans subjects through visual media; it develops methodologies that give prominence to voice and agency in research on historical sexology; and it highlights the importance of historical sexual knowledge production for understandings of LGBTQ+ lives and livelihoods today.
Llewellyn, Nick Professor SRG22\221498
University of Warwick
Unpacking Christmas Gifts: A Videographic Study
Value awarded: £9,939
Abstract: A videographic study of Christmas gift-giving is proposed. Christmas is one of a small number of global rituals, celebrated by billions of people worldwide, but little is currently known about how gifts are exchanged during the festive period. For many households, this is the defining point of the celebrations, where much is at stake, including the cost of gifts, the debt accumulated by households, the preservation of the Santa myth, donors’ knowledge of recipients, et cetera. Gifts are far from straightforward, they can generate guilt and embarrassment (Mauss [1925] 1990), as well as gratitude and affection. Whilst recipients tend to value Christmas gifts below their market value (Waldfogel 1993), there is nevertheless a social obligation to respond positively, even to unwanted gifts. Recruiting, training, and resourcing a team of volunteer videographers, the study will access the dramatological unfolding of festive gift-giving, as it plays-out live in 40-50 domestic settings.
Lockwood, Sarah Jane Dr SRG22\220917
University of Cambridge
Making Protest Work: Understanding the Role of Protest Brokers in the Organization of Collective Action
Value awarded: £9,970
Abstract: Protest brokers – intermediaries who connect elites desiring mobilization with communities of potential protesters – play an important role in the organization of collective action. They help to determine where protests take place, affect the ways in which protestors are mobilized, and fundamentally shape the type of protests we see. Despite their importance, however, we currently know relatively little about the individuals that fill these roles, their interests and preferences, and the activities they engage in, limiting our understanding of collective action in critical ways. As part of a broader project seeking to improve our understanding of protest brokers, I am applying for a BA/Leverhulme Research Grant in order to develop and pilot the first large-scale survey of protest brokers. This will provide information essential to a subsequent major grant proposal, as well as data for two stand-alone articles and to supplement the case studies in my current book manuscript.
Lorimer, Karen Dr SRG22\220762
Glasgow Caledonian University
Hostile environments? Exploring gender and class in relation to sexual violence
Value awarded: £8,952
Abstract: This research project addresses the knowledge gap that exists regarding working class women’s experiences of sexual violence. The aim of the project is to explore how sexual violence is understood and experienced by victim-survivors at the intersection of gender and class. In doing so, we will develop a more nuanced picture of how social class intersects with, and is modified by, gender inequality in relation to sexual violence. To recognise violence as gendered is to enable a mobilisation of people to challenge violence against women; however, we must also retain a class focus as, for example, being considered as a ‘credible complainer’ is a deeply classed notion rooted in the notion of respectability (Phipps 2009). In this study, we will speak to women about their experiences, including if they have disclosed their experiences and the nature of responses, to better understand the nexus between gender, class and sexual violence.
Lotto, Robyn Dr SRG22\220688
Liverpool John Moores University
"Saying goodbye is so hard, but she lives on in our memories" - Parents' experiences of perinatal palliative care
Value awarded: £4,316
Abstract: Background: Over 2000 babies are born each year. in the United Kingdom, who will not survive the first 28 days of life. Care provision varies, with some families cared for in the neonatal unit, whilst others referred to palliative care networks. To date, there has been no evaluation of the impact of the offer of palliative care on families.
Aims: To explore the perceptions and experiences of parents and carers of babies requiring palliative care. In particular, the impact of early engagement with and care provision from a children’s hospice will be explored.
Methods: A qualitative study approached will be applied. In depth, semi structured interviews will be undertaken with parents and carers of babies who have been supported by palliative care teams in a hospice setting.
Conclusion: The findings will provide the first insight into the impact of care provision within the palliative care setting.
Lynch, Brigid Dr SRG22\220619
School of Advanced Study, University of London
Everyday Wonderlands: Theme Parks and Citizenship in Argentina and Beyond
Value awarded: £9,946.08
Abstract: Characterised by the cultural aesthetics of kitsch and hyperreality, theme parks offer visitors the opportunity to experience discrete individual worlds in an enclosed and secure environment. In Argentina, theme parks are enduringly popular sites of public recreation historically constructed by the state, where visitors interact with narratives of citizenship and national identity. The aim of this first substantial study of the topic is to investigate the unexplored history of state-funded theme parks in Argentina and how, during the Kirchner period of government (2003-2015), themed and immersive leisure spaces were central to the renovation of popular conceptions of citizenship and belonging. With Covid-19 and its legacies continually remaking how we experience leisure collectively, this project will provide a compelling and much-needed investigation of the complex interconnections between recreation, public space, and collective identity, in Argentina and beyond.
Maags, Christina Dr SRG22\220699
University of Sheffield
Access denied? Examining Facilitators and Barriers to Accessing Social Care in Ageing Asia
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: The research project’s objective is to develop the first conceptual framework of access to adult social care in Asia which allows for a systematic comparison across different development contexts. Currently, no such conceptual framework exists. The project will achieve this objective, first, by conducting empirical research on access to social care in “developing” Sichuan province, China, and secondly by bringing together researchers at a joint workshop, where access to care is compared across “developing” (middle-income) and “developed” (high-income) countries and regions in ageing Asia. By comparatively examining access to social care in eight cases, researchers will identify barriers, facilitators and dimensions of access to social care, and how these differ across development contexts and stages. The proposed output will be an edited volume (i.e., Amsterdam UP) which introduces the new mid-range conceptual framework and its empirical application to facilitate further theoretical development based on research in other continents and regions.
Mac Cathmhaoill, Dónall Dr SRG22\220886
Open University
Fighting Words: Activists as Authors in the Irish Conflict
Value awarded: £8,054.33
Abstract: Throughout the conflict in Ireland (approximately 1968-1998), Irish playwrights - Brian Friel, Stewart Parker, Christina Reid, and others - addressed the horrors taking place in their communities. The latter years of the conflict and post-conflict period, after the 1998 Belfast Agreement, saw a growth in theatre with communities that sought to draw the factions into dialogue, and address legacy issues.
While scholars have studied this work to some degree, little has been written about that group of authors whose work straddles both these forms: former activists and combatants who have gone on to careers as professional playwrights. These writers have created work that occupies an important place at the intersection of arts and political advocacy and offers insights to both. This research project concentrates on this neglected group of playwrights with a view to offering insights into the interface between the arts and political advocacy, past and future.
MacLeod, Nicola Dr SRG22\220098
Aston University
The Discursive Effects of a ‘Pioneering Approach’: Police Interviews with Rape Victims post-Operation Bluestone.
Value awarded: £9,572
Abstract: From a hitherto unexplored perspective this project will examine the effects of Operation Bluestone – Avon & Somerset Constabulary (ASC)’s ‘pioneering’, ‘transformative’, ‘groundbreaking’ approach to investigating sexual offences – on the investigative interview.
Bluestone was formed to address widespread concern about ASC’s response to rape and involved a raft of changes to investigative practices including shifting focus from the victim’s credibility to the suspect’s behaviour. However, there has yet to be any attempt to examine the impact of these changes on the interview – widely regarded as the most crucial link in the criminal justice chain. From a discourse analytical perspective this research will scrutinize police-victim interviews to identify how Bluestone’s changes manifest in the language of interviewers. It is anticipated the work, anchored in a discipline currently unrepresented on Bluestone, will inform interviewer training, representing an important contribution to ongoing efforts to improve the delivery of justice for victims.
Maddock, Carol Dr SRG22\220462
Swansea University
Determining Equitable Benefits: Achieving Transitions in renewable Energy (DEBATE)
Value awarded: £9,885
Abstract: Globally, over two decades around 4.2 billion people have been affected by climate-related disasters. Developing countries and poor people are most vulnerable. Adverse consequences include impacts on health, livelihoods and sustaining environments. Renewable energy (RE) transitions are critical for mitigating climate change and India is a key player. Increasing access to RE is one solution proposed to improve health and socio-economic opportunities; yet may threaten the livelihoods of those already vulnerable to climate change. We do not know if RE transition is equitably beneficial, particularly for those reliant on fossil fuels for their everyday existence. Profound changes are required around transitions and active participation of those who will be impacted is a pre-requisite for success. This research uses participatory video with rural Indian villagers to provide a deeper contextual understanding of RE transitions. Knowledge gathered will be transferred within the community, project and beyond to enhance equitable RE solutions upscaling.
Maestri, Gaja Dr SRG22\220598
Aston University
How are migrant mothers discriminated against in destination countries? A comparative analysis of the effects of discrimination on the mental health, daily mobility practices, and access to basic rights of forced migrant mothers in Italy and the UK.
Value awarded: £8,710
Abstract: This project explores how forced migrant mothers (refugees and asylum seekers) experience intersecting discriminations as migrants, women, and mothers in destination countries. The project will focus on four main exclusionary and disciplinary practices: migration governance, racism, social regulations around motherhood, and gender inequality; and it will examine how they affect forced migrant mothers’ mental health, daily mobility practices and access to basic rights (health, housing, education, work). The research adopts a qualitative and comparative methodology, with in-depth, semi-structured interviews in the UK (Birmingham) and Italy (Milan). The comparison will help understand how different types of migrant-based communities in the two countries produce mediating factors that either exacerbate or help alleviate forced migrant mothers’ feeling of discrimination. The project aims to make visible the experiences of an important, but under-researched migrant group, and to inform civil society organisations and policy actors on how to better support their overall wellbeing and rights.
Matthews, Julian Dr SRG22\220124
University of Leicester
Reporting abuse: The undercover production of visualised scandal capital and its influence
Value awarded: £7,630.58
Abstract: Undercover filming of abuse is a recent and important feature of mediated abuse scandals. The visual scenes produced, it can be argued, offer their undercover journalists a new form of ‘capital’ to command and sustain attention for their investigations. This project will examine instances of hidden camera technology that undercover BBC and Channel 4 journalists employ to capture abuse in two social care facilities (2017 and 2019, respectively). Through interviews with the production teams, it will explore the planning and securing of these visual revelations and their mediation into scandal ‘capital’, of which we know little. The wider impact, in the attention economy, of these visualised scenes and their related reporting, will be examined thereafter using a content analysis. Examining their reach across, and longevity within the ‘attention economy’ (i.e., legacy, online and social media) will help to assess the relative success of this form of scandal ‘capital’.
Mendez, Mario Dr SRG22\221229
Queen Mary University of London
Between Representative Democracy and Direct Democracy: Citizen initiated legislation in comparative context
Value awarded: £9,679
Abstract: Representative democracy is in crisis and the principal instrument of direct democracy – the referendum – is often considered a blunt and risky instrument in an era of rising populism and misinformation. The agenda initiative (AI) is a surprisingly neglected democratic tool that operates at the intersection between direct and representative democracy by allowing individuals to request legislation following a signature gathering exercise. It thereby offers a channel for direct citizen participation mediated by representative institutions. Appropriately configured, it could lead to increased policy responsiveness to the preferences of the citizenry. The instrument has diffused rapidly in recent decades, yet little is known about it. Building on earlier work on the AI's diffusion in Europe, this project will map the features and practice of the AI across the Americas. This would lead to the first comparative study of the AI from a global perspective that combines theory, design and practice.
Mi, Biao Dr SRG22\220040
University of Reading
The effect of joint and shared audit in the syndicated loan market
Value awarded: £9,745
Abstract: To restore the trust in the audit market, the UK government will adopt a 'shared audit' strategy, which is a moderate approach to 'joint audit', to increase the competition in the audit market and therefore improve audit quality. Both shared and joint audit requires listed companies to employ more than one external auditor, but audit companies will take a different responsibility under two strategies. However, there is non-consensus evidence about the relation between joint audit and audit quality, and there is no evidence about the result of the shared audit. Apart from the audit quality, there is a research gap in how financial intermediation reacts to joint/shared audit. This project will investigate the effect of joint/shared audit in the syndicated loan market by analysing if joint/shared audit will benefit the borrower in favourable loan contract terms.
Millington, Christopher Dr SRG22\220205
Manchester Metropolitan University
A historical case study of extreme right-wing terrorism: the 1934 assassination of King Aleksandar I of Yugoslavia
Value awarded: £3,510
Abstract: This project examines the 1934 assassination of King Aleksandar I of Yugoslavia in Marseille. It investigates previously unused archival sources to analyse the operation of, and response to, ultranationalist terrorism during the 1930s, a period often overlooked in histories of terrorism. These sources comprise the documents of the police and civil authorities in Marseille concerning the king’s visit to the city in 1934, the assassination and its aftermath, including the interrogations and trials of the terrorist conspirators. The project will provide a historical case study of extreme right-wing terrorist violence, a subject that has in the last decade begun to attract scholarly attention due to several recent attacks. Research undertaken during this project will permit the completion of the first scholarly monograph on the incident, shedding light on the historical dynamics of ultranationalist terrorism and permitting comparison with the modern threat from right-wing extremists.
Mills, Elizabeth Dr SRG22\220875
University of Sussex
Gender, COVID-19 and HIV: Medical and Socio-Economic Intersections in South Africa
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: Emerging research finds higher levels of COVID-19 infection and mortality among people living with HIV. While public health research is looking closely at this medical intersection, there remains relatively little anthropological research on the socio-economic intersection between gender, HIV and COVID-19. This anthropology project aims to address this under-researched field by bringing together insights on these two intersections (medical and socio-economic) in South Africa. The medical intersections and corresponding policy approaches will be explored through interviews with ten national and local public health actors. The nature of the socio-economic intersections will be explored through interviews with a group of ten women living with HIV in Khayelitsha, with whom I have worked for over a decade. This project will generate evidence that moves beyond disciplinary silos and looks at connections between public health responses to HIV and COVID-19 and complex socio-economic context in which HIV-positive women are navigating these dual epidemics.
Mise, Maja Dr SRG22\221393
Independent Researcher
A 1st-millennium-BC booming economy? Transport amphorae at Etruscan Vulci, Italy
Value awarded: £9,022
Abstract: Trade expansion and economic growth distinguishes the middle of the 1st millennium BC in the central-western Mediterranean region and precedes further intensification with the expansion of Rome toward the end of the millennium. The city-states of Tyrrhenian southern Etruria (Italy) played a key role in these processes. Yet, much of our archaeological evidence is of a specific nature and inadequate to understand this role satisfactorily. The monumental Etruscan sites and fine ware are often choice for analysis over smaller rural sites and coarse ware containers of traded agricultural products such as transport amphorae. The aim of this research program is to improve our knowledge of the Etruscan economy through the scientific analysis of amphorae from Vulci and use them as a proxy for identifying the movement of goods. Integrating different analytical tools to identify local amphorae production, the project will develop strategies for a long-term project on the Etruscan economy.
Monti, Giustina Dr SRG22\221298
University of Lincoln
Truth and Method in Polybius’ Historiography
Value awarded: £7,500
Abstract: This project builds on my previous analysis of the criticism of Polybius (a Greek historian writing in the 2nd century BCE) against his predecessors’ approach to truth. I aim at examining Polybius’ overall reflections on the importance of truth in history-writing. My research is significant not only because it advances understanding of ancient concepts, but also because its results are relevant to modern studies relating to the same narrative devices and techniques of persuasive language. My research will shed new light on Polybius’ notion of truth, which appears to be a unique essence, but at the same time formed by diverse parts that coincide with the different phases of historical research. Finally, I shall compare Polybius’ claimed methodology with his concrete approach to documents in an attempt to give an overall idea of Polybius’ method by bringing together his theoretical writings and his approaches to the material at his disposal.
Moore, Victoria Dr SRG22\220674
University of Manchester
(No) Rehabilitation and (no) Redress: Exploring Legal and Experiential Perceptions of ‘Loss’ after Critical Care
Value awarded: £8,694.95
Abstract: This research primarily seeks to understand how critical care survivors who do not receive rehabilitation after hospital discharge perceive their loss of a chance to recover optimally. Rehabilitation plays a key role in recovery after time spent receiving critical care, but many patients do not receive this support. This means they may lose a chance to recover to the full extent possible, but this is a loss that is often unrecognised in negligence claims. A series of workshops are proposed to understand a) how critical care survivors feel about this issue, and b) what views other key stakeholders hold. In addition to creating space for this insight, the workshops are intended to establish a knowledge exchange network to inform the direction of future essential research on this subject.
Moshenska, Gabriel Dr SRG22\221327
University College London (UCL)
Archaeology of Internment in Kenya During the Mau Mau Uprising (1952-60)
Value awarded: £8,714
Abstract: The Mau Mau rebellion was an anti-colonial uprising in British-controlled Kenya from 1952 to 1960. At the core of the British response was a regime of mass detention, based on a network of 50-60 internment camps. Detainees were used as forced labour within the camps and subjected to extremes of violence and deprivation. Today, there remains uncertainty as to the precise number and location of these camps, and if any traces remain. The proposed project builds on a 2018 pilot project, and aims to conduct comprehensive surveys and digital mapping of two partially surviving internment camps: Aguthi Works Camp and Mweru Works Camp, both of which were repurposed as schools after the conflict. Our work will focus on recording surviving camp buildings and infrastructure. We intend the detailed study of these sites to serve as a template for the identification and survey of other camps and conflict sites in Kenya.
Mounsey, Chris Professor SRG22\221448
University of Winchester
VariAbilities: Distinctions of the Body
Value awarded: £6,138
Abstract: For those of us who have atypical bodies, the word “Disability” does us few favours. Defined as negatively able, the word suggests we can never match up to the able-bodied, we are expected to have our hands out asking for help from “allies” or if we manage by ourselves to do something ordinary, we are regarded as super-crips. But life for us atypical has never been, and is not now a negative experience. This project, encompassing two meetings at archives, brings together scientists, historians of science, politicians and activists under the new term VariAbility, which defines all people as having bodies that are “the same only different” from one another. From this inclusive standpoint, we will try to explain and explore how society might re-define its individuals so that we can better understand one another: so we can each feel what it might be like to be inside another body.
Moussa, Tantawy Dr SRG22\220712
University of Westminster
An examination of UK firms’ modern slavery disclosures: A gender socialisation theory perspective
Value awarded: £9,702
Abstract: Despite the abolition of slavery and its use as a cheap source of labour, modern slavery practices still widely exist in companies and their global supply chains. Globally, it is claimed that products worth a total value of $354 billion are made by individuals subject to modern slavery. To combat modern slavery, the UK government took the initiative by introducing the Modern Slavery Act (MSA) in 2015, which requires companies to disclose information about their efforts to combat modern slavery. However, little is known about UK companies’ level of transparency, whether they disclose enough information, and how disclosure levels can be enhanced through better gender diversified corporate boards. Thus, the project aims at examining the extent of corporate modern slavery disclosures and empirically examines the role of female directors’ representation on boards in enhancing modern slavery disclosures by UK companies.
Muggeridge, Anna Dr SRG22\220061
University of Worcester
Madam Mayor: women’s local activism in England and Wales, 1918—1939
Value awarded: £7,232.88
Abstract: This project will rethink our understanding of the impact of enfranchisement on women’s politics in Britain, taking a new methodological approach to the historical debate surrounding the difference the vote made to women’s lives. It takes a collective biographical approach, centring on the experiences of sixteen women mayors from across England and Wales in the interwar years. These women were involved in political and non-partisan women’s organisations on a local level, with their activism taking place exclusively within their communities. Much existing research into women’s participation in politics and public life to date has centred on participation at national level, with comparatively limited attention paid to activism at a local level. This project will begin to correct this, revealing the significance of the local to women’s politics in this period, and reshaping our understanding of women’s activism post-suffrage, which may contribute to overcoming women’s low participation rates in politics today.
Muir, Robyn Dr SRG22\220085
University of Surrey
Dream Big Princess? Consumer Meaning Making of the Disney Princess Phenomenon
Value awarded: £7,397
Abstract: The Disney Princesses make $1.686bn internationally through the sale of films and merchandise. Globally adored, the brand has permeated into various cultural areas: films, merchandising, theme parks and marketing. Whilst research has explored representations of these princesses, few studies explored what meaning consumers make from their engagement with Disney Princess culture. Taking a life course approach engaging with children, tweens, young adults and adults, this study champions consumers’ voices by exploring consumer meaning making of the Disney Princess Phenomenon. Through an audience reception study, this study centres consumers’ interpretations of the Disney Princess Phenomenon through drawing, role play and focus groups. Building on my previous research on the Disney Princess Phenomenon (Muir 2022; 2023), this study will identify (1) how consumers across the life course make meaning from the Disney Princess Phenomenon, and (2) how this contributes to their understanding of their own identity in relation to the Disney Princesses.
Mulville, Jacquline Dr SRG22\220977
Cardiff University
Wild Things? Developing sustainable food systems in prehistory.
Value awarded: £9,983.70
Abstract: Archaeological investigations on the outer Scottish islands have revealed exceptional and early evidence for the human control and manipulation of animals used as food resources. Detailed records of faunal introduction and interactions suggest that early settlers introduced red deer to a pristine environment across the dividing seas. On the Northern and Western Isles, red deer populations flourished and became integral to insular lives, just as farming systems spread across the UK and wild food usage declined. Deer, alongside sheep and cattle, became embedded in insular social, ritual and subsistence practices. Limited landmasses and challenging weather systems forced islanders to develop and adapt practices that allowed a wild species to thrive alongside domestic stock and crops for millennia. Through a close examination of the introduction, management, adaptations and, for some islands, the eventual extinction of deer, this project explores these distinctive and sustainable ways of living with wild animals.
Murdy, Samantha Dr SRG22\221250
University of Strathclyde
Exploring destination branding and stakeholder collaboration in the context of long-distance trails
Value awarded: £7,550
Abstract: Recreational walking has grown in popularity with trails allowing for directed tourist experiences, providing purposeful and interpreted routes. Spanning multiple boundaries and regions, trails offer a range of complexities regarding branding and management yet have received limited attention in the academic literature. While walking trails have the potential to enhance the development of more responsible and sustainable tourism, they can be difficult to manage due to increasing demand on natural resources and the existence of multiple stakeholders. This study proposes a mixed-method approach exploring the role of stakeholders in the branding and management of long-distance trails and the perceptions of the brand from a consumer perspective. This study aims to contribute to existing literature on destination branding and stakeholder collaboration. The lasting impact of this project is to aid the Fife Coastal Trail in understanding the complexities of branding and managing to contribute to sustainable growth for the region.
Newman, Daniel Dr SRG22\221284
Cardiff University
The Profession and the Pandemic: Legal Aid Lawyers in the Era of Austerity and COVID-19
Value awarded: £9,687.50
Abstract: The legal aid sector has been subject to long-standing austerity measures and funding constraints over several decades. This has not only facilitated a fragile working environment; however, the lawyers themselves have reported a growing sense of crisis. The cumulative impact of austerity and COVID-19 together now poses further challenges as it intersects the existing crisis, resulting in long-term vulnerabilities across the profession. This project will give voice to legal aid lawyers on the future of access to justice in a post-pandemic society, bringing experiences of those working within the criminal, family and social-welfare contexts together in one novel exploration. It will critically assess how the cumulative impact of austerity and COVID-19 has impacted working-practices, case outcomes, social-relations and job satisfaction holistically, and will propose ways of learning from the experiences of legal aid lawyers who have coped and adapted to the pandemic to inform future legal aid policy and practice.
O'Keeffe, Eleanor SRG22\221001
NatCen for Social Research
Contemporary pilgrimage practices in the UK and their affordances for a cultural democracy.
Value awarded: £8,705.53
Abstract: The UK is experiencing a pilgrimage boom in the revival of cultural interest in pilgrimage practice and increasing funding of pilgrimage infrastructures to support local heritage tourism. Despite considerable recognition of the significance of this movement, there is very little academic research into the resurgence in popularity of pilgrimage practices – who is engaging them, their motivations for doing so, and the individual and collective benefits that may result. This research programme will lead to new understanding of pilgrimage as an evolving and dynamic set of grassroots cultural practices. It will generate qualitative and quantitative data that informs our understanding of spirituality and belief in contemporary British post-secular society and the impact of COVID-19. Moreover, it will identify the unique cultural affordances and the potential contribution of these practices to a cultural democracy, providing data-driven insights to support policy making and strategic funding for the future.
Olson, Caitlyn Dr SRG22\220531
University of Oxford
Arabic Manuscripts on the Move: Islamic Theology Between North and West Africa
Value awarded: £7,758
Abstract: This project tracks the diffusion and influence of Islamic theological writings by a controversial 17th-century Moroccan scholar named Muḥammad Ibn ʿUmar as they circulated throughout West Africa during the 18th and early 19th centuries. As these virtually unstudied Arabic-language writings remain in manuscript, the project would involve gathering, collating, and transcribing them to produce a published critical edition with an introductory study. Besides contributing to emerging research on connections between Islamic North and West Africa – areas too often partitioned into separate spheres of study – examination of these writings will illuminate key trends in the region’s theological and political history. My preliminary research shows, for example, that an 18th-century theological-political dispute in Nigeria which has long puzzled historians of West Africa was linked to ideas espoused by Ibn ʿUmar. Publication and study of his writings will not only reveal such connections but also lay a foundation for further investigations.
Osnabrügge, Moritz Dr SRG22\220129
Durham University
Quality of Legislation as a Strategic Component in Legislative Decision-making
Value awarded: £9,970
Abstract: Society pays a big price for poorly written legislation: public administrations cannot implement it, citizens cannot exert their rights and courts cannot enforce it. However, identifying legislation of poor quality and examining its causes poses both empirical and theoretical challenges. To better measure the quality of legislation, this project first proposes a computational linguistic approach by building on innovative natural language processing techniques. Then, we study the causes of poorly written legislation with a game-theoretic approach. The involvement of different actors in the decision-making process will result in more ambiguous and complex legislation, to accommodate their divergent preferences. The analysis looks at the whole body of European Union legislation, exploiting its high variation in terms of legislative procedures and actors. Our study has important implications as it will provide novel insights on how the quality of legislation can be improved.
Papaioannou, Elias Professor SRG22\221082
London Business School
Quantity, Quality, and Content of the Educational Landscape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Origins and Implications.
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: What are the origins of the regional disparities in education in the Democratic Republic of Congo? To answer this question, we explore two related angles. First, we zoom in on the role of the colonial missionary societies in the provision of schooling in general and in educating the political elites since independence in particular. Second, we uncover how the country’s history is portrayed in the curriculum by conducting text analysis of history textbooks across schools in the DRC. Our research agenda contributes to the literature in economics on the legacy of the colonial experience with a focus on the education sector as well as the role of narratives in shaping identities, tastes, and perceptions. With the latter, we hope to shed some light on how a people’s history is transmitted at schools and whether it fosters an environment of critically engaging with one’s heritage or passively reproducing the status quo.
Patel, Amrish Dr SRG22\220793
University of East Anglia
Better Targeting Behaviour Change Interventions Using Decision-Making Characteristics
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: Solving social problems often involves “behaviour change”. Policymakers in areas from health to environment increasingly rely on behaviour change interventions to achieve their goals. While we know different people react differently to such interventions, not enough is known about how to target these interventions at those for whom they will work best. This project will assess the feasibility of using behavioural economics methods to elicit decision-making characteristics (e.g. preferences/beliefs) to better understand which people an intervention works on.
We will do this in the context of an intervention tackling a particularly topical problem, low influenza vaccination uptake amongst care home staff. A randomised controlled trial will evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention in 70 care homes. We will elicit decision-making characteristics of care home staff before and after the intervention, enabling us to understand which types of people the intervention works for, informing how to better target the intervention.
Pavlush, Tetyana Dr SRG22\221130
Cardiff University
Holocaust Memory on Both Sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’: Austria and Ukraine
Value awarded: £6,815
Abstract: Drawing on the new approaches in memory studies, Cold War history and media studies, this project addresses the transformation of public memory of the Holocaust in two European countries from different sides of the `Iron Curtain', Austria and Ukraine, before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It aims at a) gaining a more nuanced understanding of the whole spectrum of factors responsible for downplaying the tragedy of the Jews for decades in post-war Europe; b) re-thinking the watershed of 1989/90 for the memory of the Holocaust; c) challenging the Cold War paradigm and opening new perspectives on memory analysis beyond the East-West-divide; d) exploring the possibilities for variations of national histories and alternative memories within the conforming ideological Soviet narrative by shifting the research focus from Russia to Ukraine. The project has strong impact-oriented dimension.
Pedziwiatr, Marek Dr SRG22\220332
Queen Mary University of London
Bridging the gap between vision and language in models of human image understanding
Value awarded: £3,367.01
Abstract: Objects in our environment usually appear in predictable configurations and contexts. For example toasters, but not shovels, are typically encountered in a kitchen. The human brain leverages knowledge about these regularities to process visual information effectively. Psychologists study this process using images depicting environments that contain unusual objects (like a kitchen with a shovel in it). A promising novel method of analysing results of experiments with such images involves harnessing models of human language. They capture information about typical contexts within which objects appear and about relationships between objects, and therefore may help to explain our sensitivity to this information. These models, however, require images in which objects are annotated (that is, delineated and named). The goal of this project is to create publicly available object annotations for a set of images with unusual objects. These annotations will accelerate the uptake of language models as tools for investigating visual perception.
Pham, Thi Anh Tho Dr SRG22\221159
University of York
Blue is for Girls, Pink is for Boys: Measuring Gender-Stereotyping in Children’s Literature and Folktales
Value awarded: £8,947.40
Abstract: As suggested in the World Bank’s 2022 report entitled “Reshaping Social Norms about Gender: A New Way Forward”, social norms, especially those biased against women, are among the key obstacles towards gender equality. Particularly in developing countries, women's participation in economic activities is limited due to restrictive gender-related social norms (Jayachandran 2021). Thus, taking gender norms into account when designing policies to support women is important, yet difficult due to a lack of data. To tackle this challenge, our research proposes a new methodology that can be flexibly applied to measure not only gender norms, but also other cultural/social norms. We will also provide some preliminary quantifications of the link between the proposed gender norm measures and gender discrimination in the labour market. Thus, our research and its outcomes will make a significant contribution to the ongoing efforts of promoting gender equality.
Pichler, Heike Dr SRG22\220706
Newcastle University
Linguistic (in)stability in later life
Value awarded: £9,994.31
Abstract: The older share of the UK population is growing rapidly. And yet we know very little about older adults’ language use. Sociolinguists assume older adults do not radically alter their speech patterns as they age. This assumption, which underpins modelling of community-wide language change, ignores the untested possibility that social changes experienced by older adults may impact their speech. My project develops an innovative multi-disciplinary methodology to explore this possibility. It will analyse speech and social data collected across two distinct timepoints from 34 adults aged 70+ to achieve these aims: (i) determine whether older adults change the way they speak over time; (ii) identify those social factors that explain speech modulations over time. My longitudinal study of older adults’ language use will transform models for studying language change and enrich accounts of older adults’ changing behaviours at a time when increasing life expectancy is diversifying experiences of later life.
Preece, Jenny SRG22\220455
University of Sheffield
Unhoming: living through housing disaster and crisis from Ronan Point to the post-Grenfell cladding scandal
Value awarded: £8,594
Abstract: The research will explore unhoming through the production of collective affects. Case studies of national housing safety crises will highlight the role of emotions in individual and collective experiences of crisis. The research takes a genealogical approach, spotlighting high-profile crises in recent history, including the Ronan Point collapse, the Ledbury Estate evacuation post-Grenfell Tower fire, the current building safety crisis in the UK, and the Mica homes scandal in Ireland. There has been little attention to experiences of living through these national-level housing crises, and the unique collective and relational dynamics that they produce. The research will draw out multifaceted affective processes, exploring atmospheres of unhoming across multiple scales and theorising the production of collective moods as a form of statecraft. This emotional understanding of policy processes will demonstrate not only the potential for symbolic violence, but also foreground the collective resistance and ‘counter-affects’ generated by different groups.
Preston, John Professor SRG22\220697
University of Essex
Reconstructing capitalism after a nuclear war: post-attack planning in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1970s and 1980s
Value awarded: £5,050
Abstract: In planning for the consequences of a possible thermonuclear war in the 1970s and the 1980s there were questions of whether a viable economic system could be restored in the United Kingdom and United States. In official documents, there is an obvious emphasis on planning for immediate economic production. However, there are often references to the role of markets, money and the rebuilding of private enterprise. This project examines historical archives to analyse, and compare and contrast, how UK and US government agencies aimed to reconstruct capitalism, as an economic system. It will examine questions of how capitalism was defined, what were considered to be the threats to the capitalist system through nuclear attack, what were the mechanisms and processes through which capitalism would be restored and what were the differences and similarities in UK and US plans?
Prior, Jonathan Dr SRG22\220003
Cardiff University
Listening to the archive: A cross-cultural analysis of European wildlife sound archives, 1950 to the present
Value awarded: £9,880
Abstract: Wildlife sound archives emerged as sites of specialist scientific data sets within the 20th century, primarily as repositories of recordings for the study of animal sounds, and as reference libraries for the identification of species by scientific taxonomists and wildlife enthusiasts. The proposed research project will focus on the two largest wildlife sound archives in Europe: The British Library’s Wildlife and Environmental Sounds collection, and the Animal Sound Archive at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Through an analysis of written and aural archival materials, and interviews with key actors, the project will: a) map out the formal and informal networks that led to the creation of the two archives; b) investigate the mechanisms through which archived sound recordings are produced, maintained, circulated, and consumed; and c) critically analyse how sound recording technologies, techniques, cultures, and ethics have shaped the objectives, functions, and uses of the sound recordings.
Putwain, Dave Professor SRG22\220016
Liverpool John Moores University
Inspiring the next generation of scientists: The role of personal and teacher influences
Value awarded: £9,846.12
Abstract: The continued flow of scientifically trained persons into the workforce is essential for the economic competitiveness of, and investment in, the UK. In addition, a scientifically literate society will be better informed to respond to the challenges facing individuals and society (e.g., climate change). It is imperative, therefore, to understand the factors that drive career aspirations and achievement in science. The proposed study will examine key personal and teacher influences on students’ science aspirations and achievement in their first two years of secondary school. This is a critical period for inspiring students as interest in school science declines throughout adolescence. Specifically, the study will determine the influence of personal subjective beliefs (expectations of success in, and the value and cost of, school science) and whether teachers can inspire students through their enthusiasm, discussing the importance and usefulness of science with their classes, and their efficacy as a teacher.
Ranta, Ronald Dr SRG22\220842
Kingston University
How to feed Britain? Rethinking models of food aid provision
Value awarded: £9,256
Abstract: The proposed programme builds on research we have been conducting into how providers of food aid in London and Sussex responded to the pandemic and are responding to the cost-of-living crisis. It focuses on the changes and innovations introduced by food aid providers as a response to the pandemic, their implications, and long-term sustainability. Organising five workshops with a range of food aid providers, the programme aims to provide a preliminary assessment of whether these changes and innovations are sustainable long-term and whether they provide useful new models for food aid provision. The research will help clarify whether these provide viable alternatives to previous practices, an important question given the current cost-of-living crisis. Using design thinking, the project will also enable the co-production of applied knowledge through the development of a practical toolkit for food aid providers.
Ravelli, Galadriel Dr SRG22\220210
Independent Scholar
Colonial Memories: Remembering Libyan Deportations from the Italian Borderscape
Value awarded: £3,748.90
Abstract: In 1911, the Italian government launched the colonial occupation of Libya, which was met with unexpected and prolonged local resistance. Between 1911 and the early 1930s, Italy resorted to mass deportations to the metropole to sedate local rebellions. Thousands of ‘rebels’ (including women and children) were deported to the South of Italy, and specifically to the islands of Ustica, Favignana, Ponza, and Tremiti, and the military prison in Gaeta. This project aims to explore the memory work around colonial deportations in these former sites of confinement, focussing on communicative (oral) and cultural (monuments, street plaques, statues) forms of remembrance. It will show how local practices of remembrance challenge colonial amnesia and interrogate current policies with respect to the contemporary movement of migrants across the Mediterranean. The outputs will include a co-produced digital archive and online exhibition, and a monograph on the memory of the colonial deportations of Libyans to Italy.
Rebuschat, Patrick Professor SRG22\220379
Lancaster University
Heritage Languages go to School: The interplay of (extra)linguistic factors in successful language development
Value awarded: £9,990
Abstract: The proposed study investigates the interplay of linguistic and extralinguistic factors in successful childhood bilingualism. We will focus on heritage language bilinguals, i.e. on young children growing up in a home in which they speak a minority language that is different from the majority language dominant in larger society. The linguistic development of heritage speakers has been widely studied over the past two decades as these children encounter conditions that are particularly beneficial for the development of native proficiency in two languages. The study of heritage language speakers thus promises to be the key to understanding successful bilingual development.
The project will be conducted by a team of internationally-leading researchers in linguistics and psychology, and in close collaboration with two important non-academic stakeholders, the Anglo-Portuguese School of London, a free primary school that offers English-Portuguese bilingual education, and Portugal’s Camões Institute, one of Europe's leading institutions promoting heritage language education.
Rhodes, Mark Professor SRG22\221461
Leeds Beckett University
Brexit and the Financial Stability of UK Companies
Value awarded: £6,890
Abstract: The UK decision to leave the EU (Brexit) had significant effects for the UK economy, financial markets and for financial systems worldwide. An important aspect of this is the efficient operation of financial markets, of which liquidity (the ease of buying and selling financial assets) is a critical element. The proposal is to examine whether liquidity costs were imposed on the UK stock market by Brexit. We are interested in understanding the composition of these liquidity costs, including whether the determinants of liquidity costs have changed. A further question is whether any increase in liquidity costs persists or is perhaps more fleeting, as driven by uncertainty over trade and access agreements for financial services. In addressing these questions, we seek to better understand the implications for policy, whether in relation to the regulation of financial markets or for industrial and economic decisions.
Richardson, Carol Professor SRG22\220873
University of Edinburgh
English Catholic Communities of Collecting
Value awarded: £9,966
Abstract: What is the extent of the early modern English Catholic network and how did it operate? The Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophaea (Rome 1584) comprises 36 engraved images, telling the story of England and Wales by means of 100 Christian martyrs, all promoters and protectors of the Roman Catholic Church. Thousands of copies were distributed across Western Christendom but not via the usual commercial channels. Instead, the Trophaea’s circulation—from Portugal to Poland—exposes the covert network of English Catholics forced to hide their religion from state censure and therefore the origins of the culture of Catholic collecting that would subsequently endure for more than two centuries.
Rigo, Davide Dr SRG22\221174
London School of Economics and Political Science
Firm and Worker Level Consequences of Digital Investments: Evidence from a Quasi-natural Experiment
Value awarded: £5,200
Abstract: The last two decades have been characterized by a strong reduction in the growth rate of productivity in advanced economies, especially in the United Kingdom. Productivity growth is the main determinant of wages, which means that sluggish growth is detrimental to standards of living. Scholars have considered the digital divide between leaders and laggards firms, mostly small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as one of the main factors holding back productivity and long-term economic growth. In this project, by evaluating a policy experiment, we investigate the role of digitalisation and management capabilities in helping SMEs to scale up and identify the firm-level mechanisms driving their growth. A deeper knowledge of the impact of management consulting and digital investments on SMEs can help improving the design of inclusive policies to capitalise on the digital transition and energise sluggish productivity growth.
Rocha, Sinead Dr SRG22\220945
Anglia Ruskin University
Rhythm in the noise: Investigating the adaptive role of motor variability in the development of musicality
Value awarded: £9,507.69
Abstract: The ability to synchronise movement to sound is a remarkable universal behaviour, core to human interaction, and commonly seen in response to music. Infants cannot synchronise as adults can, and this is often dismissed as the result of a poorly coordinated motor system: Under this conventional account, synchronisation becomes less variable with increased motor control. Here, I make the counterintuitive claim that in development, what looks like poor action control might reflect exploratory behaviour, allowing the child to adapt to new environmental and physical demands, and therefore more flexibly synchronise. I argue progress is not linear, but U-shaped, with increased variability as the infant calibrates their changing motor system. I propose a longitudinal study of synchronisation as infants acquire locomotion, a period known to disrupt and transform motor skill. My findings will illuminate the role of infants own motor exploration in the development of musicality, and more broadly, skill acquisition.
Rock, Joeva Dr SRG22\220914
University of Cambridge
Governing Risk: Understanding the Regulation of Genetically Modified Crops in Africa
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: Erratic weather patterns and a booming population are placing pressure on the global food system. To bolster agricultural production in Africa, development donors, private industry, and African scientists are collaborating to develop genetically modified- and gene edited- crops. Overseeing these projects are national biosafety regulatory agencies (NBA), who must ensure safe products enter the market. Little is known about how these agencies make decisions. Thus, my project proposes an ethnographic study of the NBA of Ghana to ask: How do African officials understand and determine biosafety? How do socio-cultural understandings of environment, agriculture, and risk influence biosafety regulations?
Routley, Claire Dr SRG22\221255
University of Kent
Living on through in memory giving: charitable giving and identity
Value awarded: £5,320
Abstract: When a loved one dies, many people choose to support a charity in their memory. The literature on bereavement suggests that this support could lessen the pain of bereavement, whilst enabling the bereaved person to continue their loved one’s identity through making a difference in their name. This ability may be particularly important given the experience of the Covid 19 pandemic where bereaved people may not have had access to many traditional grieving rituals. This project will use qualitative interviews to explore bereaved charity supporters’ experience of loss, the role of fundraising in their grief/recovery experience and the nature of their relationship to the charity they are supporting. Results will be shared with academics and practitioners with the intention of both increasing our knowledge base and improving bereaved supporters' experiences with the charities they support.
Runacres, Jessica Dr SRG22\220310
Staffordshire University
How can universities better support student carers? An exploration of student carer priorities and support needs.
Value awarded: £5,402
Abstract: Student carers are students in higher education (HE) with a commitment to providing unpaid support to a family member and/or friend who could not manage without their care. Student carers experience barriers to accessing and succeeding in HE. Existing research highlights caring responsibilities influence students’ decisions and experiences, and that student carers experience lower wellbeing and increased financial strain compared to those without caring responsibilities. However, there is a dearth of understanding of student carers’ priorities and experiences. This is required to support planning and evaluation of recruitment and retention strategies. This research will explore student carers priorities and support needs to determine better support in HE. A steering committee with key stakeholders will oversee the research. Student carers will be interviewed twice approximately eight weeks apart using a flexible format. Caring responsibilities and educational stressors vary across time, undertaking two interviews will better understand wider factors which impact experiences.
Ryan-Flood, Roisin Professor SRG22\221347
University of Essex
'Off Grid' Donor Identity Disclosure: what happens when people trace their egg or sperm donor through social media or genetic testing?
Value awarded: £9,828.30
Abstract: This ground-breaking project investigates the experiences of those who are affected by donor identity disclosure through ‘off grid’ means in the UK. Legal frameworks prohibit seeking donor identifying information until a donor conceived person reaches the age of eighteen (and deny access to donor information to those conceived prior to 2005). Nonetheless, increasingly donor conceived people, or their parents, are attempting to access information about their own or their child/ren’s biological roots either through social media sites or genetic testing. Using photovoice interviews, this project will investigate the experiences of those who are affected by this form of donor identity disclosure (e.g. donors, donor conceived people and/or the parents of donor conceived people), experiences which are rarely heard in the public sphere.
Sahasranamam, Sreevas Dr SRG22\221450
University of Strathclyde
Building digital ecosystems in bottom-of-the-pyramid communities
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: In this study, we aim to understand the processes and practices for building digital ecosystems in bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) communities. This study will take a phenomenon-based approach drawing on the case studies of two start-ups from India in the agriculture and service sector - TraceX creating a blockchain-enabled ecosystem for the agriculture supply chain and Global Himalayan Expedition creating a net-zero ecosystem for tourism in remote mountainous regions. The case studies are focussed on empowering local communities to identify and solve their UN SDG challenges. The challenges of building digital ecosystems in BoP are more social than technical, considering issues of marginality, inequality, and education. The data collection will be done through field visits and interviews with different stakeholders involved in the local ecosystem. The results from the study would offer insights on ownership, governance process, and bottom-up ecosystem-building practices in BoP communities.
Sainani, Sushil Dr SRG22\221434
University of Liverpool
The Antecedents and Consequences of Masking CEO Firings
Value awarded: £9,681.95
Abstract: Deliberate masking of CEO firings essentially disguises the real value of a firm's assets, which in turn has negative consequences for shareholders, employees, the communities in which firms work, and society at large. CEO departure is a topic that has stirred public interest, concern, and controversy. Because the reasons for a CEO’s departure are not fully disclosed, researchers can only classify a CEO’s exit as forced or voluntary with uncertainty. Indeed, it is extremely rare that a CEO is overtly fired by a board of directors. Rather, companies “mask” the departure of their CEOs with phrases such as “leaving to spend more time with family”. By using a new data, I identify societal-, industry, individual and firm-level antecedents of masking CEO firings. I also review the scope, nature and consequences of masking CEO firings on various stakeholder groups such as shareholders, managers, local communities and society.
Samuel, Steven Dr SRG22\221411
City, University of London
How do we take others' visual perspectives?
Value awarded: £2267.79
Abstract: The ability to understand what other people see, their visual perspective, is critical to smooth human social interaction. This project will examine what taking others' visual perspectives actually means. Participants will perform an experiment in which they need to reconstruct what someone with a different viewpoint sees, in the same way they see it. This will include aspects such as the colour, shape, and orientation of objects. Results will tell us what aspects of others' perspectives are harder or easier to represent in our own minds, providing an important insight into the nature of cognitive representations of other people's experience.
Sancak, Merve Dr SRG22\221224
Loughborough University
Labour-intensive industries and development challenges: Dynamics of technology investment and refugees' employment in the Turkish textile industry
Value awarded: £9,999
Abstract: This project will study the factors that influence the adoption of new technologies and employment of refugees in the Turkish textile industry, and the implications of these for economic and social upgrading in textile firms. Although adopting new technologies and employment of migrants/refugees play a critical role for the economic and social upgrading of firms from late-industrialising countries, there is limited theorisation about why firms (do not) pursue these strategies, the relations between the two strategies, and the impact of these strategies on firms and workers. The proposed project aims to fill this gap by surveying 200 Turkish textile firms in the supply chains of two British retailers, and interviewing relevant stakeholders. It will contribute to the literature about upgrading in the global value chains, the research on the political economy of development and middle-income trap, and emerging discussions about migrants’ employment in late-industrialising countries in the international management literature.
Sarafian, Iliana Dr SRG22\220997
London School of Economics and Political Science
Unwanted Strangers – Ethnographies of Bordering, Deservingness and Resilience among Ukrainian Roma Refugees in Poland
Value awarded: £9,990
Abstract: This research explores geographical and social bordering practices through the lived experiences of Ukrainian Roma refugees in Poland. Amidst the acts of solidarity for Ukrainians fleeing the Russia-Ukraine conflict, there are cases of discriminative attitudes towards Ukrainian Roma refugees crossing the borders into Poland. Previous regimes of mobility, security, citizenship, solidarity, and humanitarianism overlapping with the impact of the COVID-19 crisis have materialised in institutional and everyday bordering practices, including racism and non-recognition of citizenship. This research considers the so-called ‘reasonable’ Anti-Gypsyism as a social bordering everyday practice to explore the close interrelationships between social and political bordering. The study investigates how local solidarity initiatives emerge, shift, wane or are not available, while interrogating notions of resilience in the context of border struggles and racialised migration among Ukrainian Roma refugees. The key intention of the research is policy influence.
Scheib, Christiana Dr SRG22\220112
University of Cambridge
Development of an ancient pregnancy test using paleoproteomics.
Value awarded: £9,972.48
Abstract: The ability to determine whether a female skeleton was pregnant at death would open numerous doors for research into human evolution, life history and maternal mortality risks and rates in prehistory. Current indicators have limitations as foetal remains may not preserve and post-depositional movement or grave disturbance can separate remains. This research will develop a biomolecular pregnancy test for ancient skeletons by exploiting paleo proteomics. Tooth and bone powder from known pregnancy cases will be subjected to a targeted proteomic isolation and analysis pipeline. This will determine whether pregnancy-specific proteins (e.g. human choriogonadotropin (HcG)) from the bloodstream preserve in skeletal material. If so, it will provide a protocol for large-scale screening of archaeological remains in combination with or in absence of osteological evidence, allowing, for the first time, accurate detection of maternal mortality in the past and the baseline for further investigation into historical factors, causes and experience.
Schenoni Santos, Luis Leandro Dr SRG22\220972
University College London (UCL)
Latin American Revolts Project (LARP)
Value awarded: £9,482.36
Abstract: LARP is a multidisciplinary research project on the determinants of political violence in Latin America, the most violent region in the world. The project focuses on recorded instances of "rebellion" since the consolidation of the Latin American international system in 1830. Rebellion is a broad category capturing all forms of political violence by groups other than the state. Long-term trends and links between these revolts, although key to understand violence today, have been poorly explored because of the narrower conceptual and temporal focus of current research. At the core of LARP is a dataset which has already identified 1,317 episodes of rebellion from 1830 to 1929. Our pilot expanded the coverage of existing datasets— e.g., on coups and civil wars—and identified new types of rebellion. LARP will cover twenty countries and two centuries of history, providing the largest and most complete dataset on political violence for the region.
Sciuto, Ruggero Dr SRG22\221176
University of Oxford
Piecing Together an Author: D’Holbach’s Correspondence and Related Documents
Value awarded: £9,835
Abstract: While mostly neglected today, Paul Thiry, baron d’Holbach (1723-1789) was among the most important figures of the French Radical Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that fed into the French Revolution and was highly influential in shaping our modern notions of democracy and civil rights. Should my application be successful, I propose to publish the first digital critical edition of d'Holbach's correspondence and related documents. This project will significantly advance our knowledge on the Radical Enlightenment and the circulation of ideas in eighteenth-century Europe, while also making an enormous contribution to the Digital d’Holbach project, an international, Oxford-based project that I direct and that aims to provide the scholarly community with the first critical edition of d'Holbach's complete writings.
Seymour, Laura Dr SRG22\220372
University of Oxford
New understandings of Hamlet: centring lived experience of suicidal ideation and neurodivergence
Value awarded: £7,736.28
Abstract: My project will result in new literary understandings of suicidal language in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’. This research is innovative because of its methodology, which centres lived experience of suicidal thoughts and neurodivergence to help identify, define, and explore nuances in Shakespeare’s language. I will achieve this centring of lived experience by running focus groups discussing how our own emotional lives and experiences of neurodivergence, sadness, anger, and depression help us understand ‘Hamlet’. My premise is that reflecting on people’s real experiences and emotional lives will identify nuances in Shakespeare’s language that traditional literary criticism has hitherto elided. All too often in literary studies, disabled and neurodivergent people’s experiences are devalued or not listened to, despite us being authorities on our own lives and experiences, with valuable insights to share. My methodology will generate new ways of understanding and performing ‘Hamlet’, based on the authority and value of neurodivergent and disabled experiences.
Shepherd, Lee Dr SRG22\220551
Northumbria University
Assessing the effectiveness of cognitive reappraisal for promoting organ donation across the UK
Value awarded: £6,915
Abstract: In the UK there is a substantial shortage of organs for transplantation. Indeed, there are currently over 4,000 patients waiting for an organ transplant and someone dies each day waiting for a donor organ (NHS Blood and Transplant, 2021). Therefore, there is an urgent need to improve the availability of donor organs. Two important strategies for increasing the availability of donor organs are increasing the number of people who are willing to a) register as an organ donor and b) allow a deceased family member’s organs to be transplanted. Previously, we have found people have various emotional beliefs towards organ donation and that these act as a barrier to donating one’s own and a family member’s organs. This project will assess whether improving people’s emotional beliefs towards organ donation through cognitive reappraisal increases their willingness to donate their own organs (Study 1) and a deceased family member’s organs (Study 2).
Smith, Simon J. Dr SRG22\220631
Staffordshire University
Has British Civil-Military Leadership Failed? Military Politics and Senior Officer Political Competencies
Value awarded: £7,168
Abstract: Has British Civil-Military Leadership Failed? Military Politics and Senior Officer Political Competencies explores the role Britain’s senior officers can, should, and do play in shaping their political environments, at home and abroad. Serious concerns about the competencies of British senior officers have recently been registered in the public sphere (Akram 2019). These officers confront a volatile geostrategic climate, characterised by the targeting of political vulnerabilities in order to encourage democratic backsliding and hinder decision-making. This project marks a radical break with orthodox theories of civil-military relations, linking concerns about British senior officership to a larger effort by scholars internationally to theorise military politics in a new era of sophisticated political warfare. Drawing on a Grounded Theory methodology, the project explores whether current and future British senior officers have the political skill-set necessary to navigate core challenges of military politics today: horizontal alignment across agencies, and vertical alignment with national decision-makers.
Song, Jiaqi Flora Dr SRG22\220813
University of Liverpool
Environmental Friendliness and Product Design
Value awarded: £9,960
Abstract: This research intends to test how product glossiness can influence consumers’ perceptions and decisions related to environmental friendliness. Using experimental designs, this research aims to show that consumers judge products with a glossy, rather than matte exterior design as being less environmentally friendly. This effect is expected to be driven by the belief that glossier products are more processed and less natural. In addition, due to the lower perceived environmental friendliness of glossy (vs. matte) products, consumers are expected to have higher recycling intention and the likelihood of glossy rather than matte products. This research will contribute to our understanding of the vital role played by product glossiness in changing consumers’ perceptions and reactions to environmental protection. The findings are expected to bring broad implications for marketers to communicate their environmentally friendly positioning to consumers and for policy marketers to promote recycling and environmental protection actions by consumers.
Southgate, Christopher Professor SRG22\220381
University of Exeter
An intensive theological analysis of the problem of the suffering of non-human creatures in evolution
Value awarded: £7,246
Abstract: For Christian thinkers the character of the natural world as described by the sciences is problematic. Creation is confessed as 'very good' in Genesis, the work of a creator considered perfectly benevolent. Yet nature is full of struggle and suffering. The problem seems to be intensified by the Darwinian insight that competition and struggle drive the evolution of refined creaturely characteristics. Members of the research group have reflected long and hard about this issue, and will now combine to generate a monograph that will provide both a general overview of the field and cutting-edge thinking at the forefront of debate. This will be achieved through intensive conversation and exchange of papers for mutual criticism and refinement. The book will include consideration of the impact of the problem on theologies of creation and redemption, as well as recognition of the fundamental limitations of any solution to the theological problem of suffering.
Spagnuolo, Elena Anna Dr SRG22\220890
Aberystwyth University
Forgotten Pages of Italian History: An Investigation into the Initiative 'I Treni della Felicità', through Interviews and Archival Research
Value awarded: £8,000
Abstract: Between 1945 and 1952, the association Unione Donne Italiane (Italian Women’s Union) and the Italian Communist Party organised the evacuation of around 70,000 children from poor backgrounds. The operation, known as Happiness trains, started in Milan and was subsequently extended to the South of Italy. The children headed to regions in Central Italy, such as Emilia Romagna, Marche and Toscana, where they would be temporarily hosted by local families.
Despite its importance and relevance within the context of Italy’s post-war reconstruction, the initiative constitutes one of the most neglected and forgotten pages of Italian history and has received little scholarly attention. The present project aims to fill in this gap, seeking to document a missing piece of Italian history. Indeed, the operation allows an examination of some of the main aspects of post-war Italy, such as the role played by Italian women and the relationship between State and society.
Stielau, Allison Dr SRG22\220710
University College London (UCL)
German Civic Plate from Early Modernity through the Twentieth Century: Changing Values, Historicism, and the Copy
Value awarded: £4,719.67
Abstract: German cities once held large collections of gold and silver vessels that served ceremonial functions but also became a financial resource in times of fiscal crisis. In the nineteenth century these collections of "Ratssilber" attracted interest as witnesses to a city’s long history and symbols of civic pride. As historical silver was acquired by private collectors and museums, the market value of civic plate rose, prompting both the copying and sale of long-protected vessels. This project investigates the changing financial, historical, and symbolic value of civic plate through the town of Bernkastel-Kues. Recent research has revealed that one of its seventeenth-century silver cups has been in the United States for decades while, unbeknownst to civic leaders and metalwork experts, a copy has been serving its civic role in Germany. An interdisciplinary team of experts will collaborate to reveal the origins and fate of this cup and its copies.
Stoddart, Simon Professor SRG22\220926
University of Cambridge
Gubbio revisited
Value awarded: £7,051
Abstract: The Gubbio project, an original landscape study of an intermontane basin, was undertaken between 1983 and 1989 and published in a monograph (Malone & Stoddart 1994). Many changes have subsequently taken place in research and methodology in the subsequent 30 years, including digitisation (eg. GIS), new discoveries (as well as dating) and comparative approaches to mountain societies. This short project will revisit the evidence of the original project and transfer the data into a comparative digital framework which will permit effective comparison with later studies of mountain societies. The work will focus on the redating of the original survey material in the light of new excavations by the team on kiln sites in the local area and a more detailed study of a Roman famstead and the stratigraphy of Monte Ansciano (1100 BC - 100 AD). The result will be a bilingual reassessment of this important valley through time.
Storey, Alice Dr SRG22\220120
Birmingham City University
Implementing Recommendations from the UN’s Universal Periodic Review: Strengthening the Role of Civil Society Organisations
Value awarded: £9,996.60
Abstract: The UPR is an innovative mechanism, peer-reviewing all 193 UN Member States’ protection and promotion of human rights. The UPR was created alongside the UN Human Rights Council in 2006 and began its first cycle in 2008. All Member States have been reviewed three times, with the fourth cycle commencing in November 2022. To strengthen the role that civil society organisations (CSOs) play within the UN’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism, this project will assess (1) how CSOs currently engage in domestic implementation of UPR recommendations and (2) how CSOs could better participate in such implementation, ultimately providing (3) a Blueprint for strengthened CSO engagement. This project is part of the BCU Centre for Human Rights’ (and THE Award-shortlisted) UPR Project at BCU. Funding is requested to employ a Research Assistant to utilise a mixed-methods approach to deliver the study and disseminate the Blueprint to key UPR actors in Geneva.
Strukov, Vlad Dr SRG22\221380
University of Leeds
Remediating soft power: global streaming services and national film cultures
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: This project will provide a multidisciplinary scoping assessment of the extent to which global streaming services such as Netflix are influencing the strategic narratives embedded in national soft power initiatives, and specifically, the extent to which nation states have updated their cultural policies in response to the proliferation of these streaming services. It takes as its focus Korea, Mexico, and Turkey, chosen for their combination of well-developed soft power strategies and audio-visual industries, similar geopolitical positionings and concerns, and their considerable engagement with global streaming services. Analyses of soft power in relation to audio-visual media have to date focused on nationally produced TV and film products. Using a combination of literature reviews and interviews with key personnel, the project will fill a gap in knowledge relating to how pervasive streaming platforms, which are often global in reach but national in their organisation, ‘remediate’--'borrow from and refashion'--existing soft power objectives.
Sugden, Fraser Dr SRG22\221040
University of Birmingham
Understanding the role of collective farming systems in supporting sustainable and resilient agrarian livelihoods in South Asia
Value awarded: £9,940
Abstract: Group farming, involving the pooling of land, labour and capital, offers an exciting opportunity for South Asia's marginal and tenant farmers to overcome scale barriers to investment, weak bargaining power, and vulnerability to climate change. This project builds upon an earlier (2015-20) pilot research which established 20 group farms in Nepal, and India's Bihar and West Bengal states by mobilising 4 models of collective action. The research entails a follow up study, to collect data from the same groups, as well as individual farmers, to understand the resilience of these models to recent shocks, most notably the Covid 19 pandemic, 2022 drought and cost of production crisis. It will offer valuable insights into performance of group farms versus individual farms in coping with stress and what lies behind these differences and will open an opportunity to propose changes to the original models to support their long term sustainability and scalability.
Swarbrick, Jonathan Dr SRG22\221373
University of St Andrews
Unemployment and monetary policy in an uncertain world
Value awarded: £9,970
Abstract: The aim of this project is to study the linkages between unemployment and monetary policy when there is a high amount of uncertainty about the future. Although unemployment is at the heart of the monetary policy debate, it is usually modelled in an overly simplistic way in economic models used for policy analysis.
Recent studies have found that most new hires at companies are replacements of former employees and that creating new positions is very costly. This cost is likely to interact with economic uncertainty by causing businesses to ‘wait and see’ rather than expand when the future is particularly unknown.
In this project, I will build a model capturing this feature and use it to assess the performance of monetary policy. In doing so, reevaluating the trade off between inflation and unemployment in the face of a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the future path of the economy.
Talay, Cagri Dr SRG22\221340
Loughborough University
The role of ethical concerns linked to products and supply chain issues of retailers in anti-consumption behaviour
Value awarded: £6,440
Abstract: Academic research in marketing has provided important insights into the motivations of individuals who avoid consuming environmentally unfriendly products to protect the environment. However, moving consumption to environmentally friendly products may not adequately protect the environment in the face of today’s urgent environmental challenges. There is currently no clear understanding of how ethically oriented anti-consumption influences retailers’ environmental strategies and achieves environmental protection because greenwashing creates difficulties for consumers in understanding the ethical issues surrounding products and supply chains and in evaluating the impact of their consumption on the environment.
The planned studies will investigate how ethical concerns across both products and retailers’ supply chains impact anti-consumption behaviour and the effects of ethical anti-consumption behaviour on reducing environmental harm. The findings from the studies will be disseminated via journal articles and conferences.
Talbot, Catherine Dr SRG22\220836
Bournemouth University
Harnessing social media to support people living with dementia: A framework to guide training and resource development
Value awarded: £9,310.34
Abstract: Our preliminary research suggests that social media can be a valuable source of post-diagnostic support for people with early-stage dementia. However, the perspectives of other key stakeholders, including carers, dementia organisations, and people with dementia who do not already use social media, are yet to be explored; and there is a notable lack of evidence-based training and resources. We address this gap in our work in which we ask: “How can we support people with early-stage dementia to use social media in a manner that can satisfy the diverse needs of stakeholders”. In Study 1, stakeholders’ attitudes towards people with early-stage dementia using social media will be explored through a combination of an online survey and in-depth interviews. In Study 2, workshops will be conducted with stakeholders to co-produce resources and a training framework. Our work responds to recent calls to support people with dementia to live well.
Tingle, Elizabeth Professor SRG22\220666
De Montfort University
Cathedral, City and Crown in the French Wars of Religion
Value awarded: £8,270
Abstract: The grant will support archival research in France for my monograph project ‘Cathedral, City & Crown in the French Wars of Religion.’ This examines the role of cathedral chapters in the political economy of later 16th-century France, when the relationship between faith, cities and the royal state was under intense scrutiny during the religious wars. Cathedral chapters were major urban institutions yet their role in defining Catholic urban religious culture and economy, in city and royal governance and finance, is little studied. This project does so through examination of a region greatly affected by religious conflict, western France. The principal investigations focus on the role of cathedral chapters in religious violence and its arbitration; militarisation of urban government; financing war; negotiations with the Crown. The project will leverage future research into religious institutions and political economy in pre-modern societies, particularly in early capitalist commerce and finance, regional and state governance.
Torino, Giulia Dr SRG22\220651
University of Cambridge
Extending Urbanisation: Migration, Labour and the Struggle for Place in the Black Mediterranean
Value awarded: £9,999.60
Abstract: How do migration, border regimes, and the organisation of global labour converge to shape urban life? This innovative research project looks at urbanisation beyond the rural-urban divide, by focusing on the transnational geography of the “Black Mediterranean.” It examines the under-investigated role of mobile forms of inhabitation that extend from sub-Saharian and North Africa to shape urbanisation in Southern Europe. In Italy, particularly, the proliferating makeshift settlements known as “migrant ghettoes” are routinely built and unbuilt around the exploitation of global labour force in the agricultural supply chain. Stigmatised on racial grounds and essentialised as "non-places" or "deathscapes,” these spaces also continue to be mistaken as “rural” and neglected in urban research. Using participant observation, qualitative interviews and a decolonial research ethos, this innovative study explores the making of new, transnational urban geographies that extend between Africa and Europe, at the crossroads of migration, labour and the struggle for place.
Trakulphadetkrai, Natthapoj Dr SRG22\221044
University of Reading
Improving mathematical talk of Key Stage 2 children through co-creating mathematical story picture books
Value awarded: £10,000
Abstract: This study aims to explore the extent to which working in pairs to co-create a short story picture book about fractions helps children (aged 9-10) engage in using mathematical talk. This study is important as mathematical talk can foster children’s mathematical thinking. 60 pairs of Year 5 children of different ability levels in the Southeast of England will be randomly allocated to either an intervention or comparison cohort. Over the course of one 60-minute session, the intervention cohort children will work in pairs to co-create one short story picture book about fractions, while the comparison cohort children will work in pairs to solve fraction problems on worksheets. Children's conversations about fractions will be transcribed and analysed using statistical analyses to explore whether there is any statistically significant difference in the quantity and quality of talk about fractions across the two cohorts, when controlling for children’s age.
Trogal, Kim Dr SRG22\220672
University for the Creative Arts
Sites of democratic urban practice: revisiting participatory housing in Bologna 1968–1977
Value awarded: £8,958
Abstract: Our project sheds new light on how architecture and urban planning can support democratic and equitable city development. At a time of global resurgence of ‘new municipalism’ and empowering local citizens, we focus on the city of Bologna’s history of participatory urban development (1968-77), when the city pioneered a programme of decentralisation, participatory democracy and innovative forms of ‘non-market’ housing. Architecture and planning were key elements of the municipal government’s strategy yet crucial information about the role of citizens and the role of women in particular has been neglected. We develop three case studies of participatory, non-market models of housing in Bologna, and show the contributions of women, migrants and other neglected figures. Our aims are to construct an understanding of democratic city development that goes beyond the dominant perspective of the local state and male subjects, to better account for the lived realities of participation in urban development.
Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart J Dr SRG22\220985
University of Southampton
Selective liberalism: experiments in ethnic issue-bundling & LGBT+ rights
Value awarded: £7,460
Abstract: Can nativist attitudes condition support for LGBT+ rights? The sustained advance in pro-LGBT+ attitudes in parts of Europe contrasts with the greening of negative concerns over immigration propagated by nativist state actors and political parties. We argue that these parallel trends are causally connected. We design the first experimental test of this thesis, seeking to demonstrate that exposure to sexually conservative ethnic out-groups can provoke an instrumental increase in support for LGBT+ rights. Leveraging a vignette experiment on representative samples of Dutch, German, and Hungarian respondents, we seek to provide robust cross-national empirical evidence that nativist respondents strategically liberalise their levels of support for inclusive LGBT+ measures when opponents of these measures are from the ethnic outgroup. The findings of our study will have implications for how we understand the simultaneously interconnected, yet diverging, attitudes towards sexual and ethnic others in the European countries with diverging levels of progressive attitudes.
Ugarte, Sofía Dr SRG22\220286
University of Cambridge
The Reproductive Life of Pensions
Value awarded: £9,965.78
Abstract: This project will provide currently absent empirical grounding to the question: How does a post-pandemic and ageing world recontextualize human care and subsistence? Drawing on long-term ethnography and biographical interviews with multi-generational households in urban Chile, it will investigate the impact of pension systems and retirement insecurity among older women and within gendered family dynamics of social reproduction. The ethnography will ground new knowledge on the ways contemporary kinship dynamics and household economies sustain social and biological livelihoods beyond women of reproductive age and outside waged work. Through a careful examination of how the intergenerational experiences of ageing become part of the politico-economic rhythms of pensions and social security, the project will articulate research findings with debates around the rise of living costs in ageing societies. In doing so, this study will transform understandings of what we mean by reproduction, kinship, and capital across social landscapes in crises.
Valiente, Oscar Professor SRG22\221246
University of Glasgow
Youth Building a Future: Institutional and contextual factors mediating the effectiveness of apprenticeships on the trajectories of young people in Mexico.
Value awarded: £9,968.45
Abstract: The aim of this research is to determine under what institutional and contextual circumstances apprenticeship policies can support the educational and labour market trajectories of young people in low- and middle-income countries. The study will focus on a recently launched apprenticeship policy in Mexico (Youth Building a Future), and it will evaluate how institutional and contextual factors mediate the effects of this policy on different profiles of young people in the medium term. This research will combine realist evaluation with human capabilities theory to explain why apprenticeships produce divergent outcomes for different populations in Mexico, but also to evaluate to what extent and how the policy is supporting young people in the fulfilment of their personal goals.
Van Coppenolle, Brenda Dr SRG22\221381
University of Essex
Experimenting with Lotteries in Citizens Assemblies: Learning from Deliberation on Legislation
Value awarded: £9,931.20
Abstract: Assemblies of randomly-selected citizens are increasingly used to deliberate on topical issues such as climate change, and constitutional reform. Why is deliberation more successful in some citizens’ assemblies than others? How should we expect randomly composed groups to behave when voting on policy? Drawing on my past analysis of natural experiments with lotteries in 19th century legislatures, I designed an online citizens’ assembly experiment to test theory. I will vary deliberation, while controlling group size, composition, issue saliency, voting rule, and policy options, which are well-known to elicit strategic voting behaviour, confounding deliberative effects. Results will help to understand when and why deliberation can address today’s urgent, polarising political issues. This experiment crucially links my historical work to my future research agenda, by demonstrating the contemporary relevance of past experiments to academics and politicians organising citizen assemblies today, and extending research capacity to source funding for experiments in larger assemblies.
van Raalte, Christa Dr SRG22\220014
Bournemouth University
Understanding the Production Management skills gap in UK TV.
Value awarded: £9,176.30
Abstract: The growing demand for original streamed content represents unprecedented production opportunities for UK television. The industry’s ability to respond, however, is limited by skills gaps, notwithstanding the aspirational nature of work in the sector. One role that consistently heads the lists of skills shortages is that of Production Manager (PM), raising several question keenly debated yet unresolved by the industry: Why does the industry struggle to recruit to PMs? Why does it lose so many experienced PMs? How can it adapt to better attract and retain PMs in the future?
This project will provide important insights into the experiences and motivations of PMs currently working in the industry as well as those who have left. It will address the human cost to casualities of the ‘leaky talent pipeline’ as well as the business implications, and will have wider significance in terms of skills gaps and management practices across the industry.
Vantaggiato, Francesca Pia Dr SRG22\221218
King's College London
Paying a flood tax? A Comparative Analysis of Social Processes within Flood Risk Management Partnerships in England and Wales.
Value awarded: £9,795
Abstract: Flood risk management is a complex and essential governance task for increasing local resilience to flooding. In England and Wales, the governance of flood risk comprises regional collaborative partnerships that bridge between the central and local levels of government by bringing together different types of actors to assess risk, foster consensus and allocate resources. Although in both systems funding is allocated based on benefit-cost ratio, the institutional design of the partnerships is different. Existing work on flood risk management has outlined the origins, features, and functioning of partnerships in the two systems. This project investigates how institutional differences affect participants’ behaviour within partnerships and their perceptions of partnerships’ performance in a comparative analysis that combines existing literature on flood risk management with the theoretical framework of polycentric governance and uses data science and quantitative methods. The findings will inform policy recommendations to improve the efficiency and the fairness of partnerships.
Venter, Gyuri Dr SRG22\221215
University of Warwick
Central Bank Communication Networks and Asset Prices
Value awarded: £9,974
Abstract: Communication by central banks (CB), in the form of written statements, press conferences, and president speeches, is scrutinised by audiences ranging from journalists to portfolio managers and academic economists, and is known to have a powerful effect on asset prices. However, identifying the mechanisms through which CB communication affects prices is challenging because traditionally policy action and communication about current and future actions occur right after each other or even simultaneously. We (i) propose a new methodology, using high-frequency data, to disentangle CB action and communication, and to identify two distinct channels of communication: information about the future path of interest rates and communication risk premia (=compensation for bearing the risk of interest rate movements induced by CB communication); (ii) study the impact of these components on government bond prices and the currencies of the largest economies; and (iii) study theoretically the underlying economic mechanism at play.
Virk, Nader Dr SRG22\220471
Swansea University
Uncovering the "unknown unknowns" of managerial alignment in multistakeholder capitalism through machine learning approaches
Value awarded: £8,950
Abstract: Issues of "Greenwashing" and "Greenwishing" are stymying the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) transformation of the corporate world by hampering capital mobility. This pilot study will address data and inferential reliability gaps by studying managerial alignment to ESG goals in the 30 multinational companies in the DOW 30 index, as these companies are fundamental to capturing and influencing global business cycle variations. Managerial alignment to the ESG agenda will be studied through a novel digital infrastructure that will gather, process, and aggregate big data, structured and unstructured, by employing advanced data mining and machine-learning techniques. This infrastructure will provide specific and detailed company insights that will restore investor trust and boost capital mobility by supporting asset managers and owners in funding multistakeholder capitalism. This study will serve as a template for investigating a range of connected multi-disciplinary problems, such as the impact of ESG compliance, shareholder activism, and corporate networks.
Vu, Tuyet Nhung Dr SRG22\220662
Loughborough University
Climate risk and corporate debt policy
Value awarded: £9,504
Abstract: This research investigates whether, or to what extent, climate risk affects firm capital structure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research focusing on the relationship between climate risk and debt maturity dispersion. The project will examine the impact of climate risk on corporate debt profiles across time in different institutional and country contexts, with a particular emphasis on developing countries where there is a consensus that the biggest impacts of climate change are being felt. The findings will support (i) firms to evaluate their current and future debt policies to adapt to climate change, and (ii) governments and policymakers to review and evaluate to what extent climate policies can stimulate and support firm operation in different country settings. We seek funding to cover the costs that arise related to data collection, process and merger as well as disseminate our work with experts in corporate finance.
Walsh, Kirsten Dr SRG22\221331
University of Exeter
History & Philosophy of the Archive
Value awarded: £8,250
Abstract: It is historians, you might think, who are responsible for telling history. That is, the historian determines what happened, what mattered and why. But the historian relies on a lesser-known figure: the archivist. Not every text can be preserved, stored, catalogued and made available. And it is the archivist’s job to decide which texts make the cut and which are lost. ‘History and Philosophy of the Archive’ examines how archival practices make and shape history, particularly the history of science, from a philosophical and historical perspective. Through the examination of two cases of archival curation (notes and records of the early Royal Society and the Portsmouth collection of Newton’s papers at the Cambridge University Library), we consider the relationship between the history of science and archival practice.
Waltham-Smith, Naomi Dr SRG22\221494
University of Warwick
Listening, Democracy, and Nationalism: Unheard Echoes in the Archives of Recent French Philosophy
Value awarded: £9,980.40
Abstract: It is widely claimed that we live in an age of political distrust and disaffection ripe for the resurgence of right populisms. This project proposes a novel analysis by developing a vernacular diagnosis moulded by the commentariat: rich democracies today are undergoing a crisis of listening. While the term is frequently used in contemporary discourse, there is no recognizable concept of listening in the history of political philosophy. Contributing to a larger project that unearths more or less subterranean concepts of listening in European philosophy and its interlocutors, the proposed archival research examines unpublished texts from an especially resonant seam of late twentieth-century French thought that address listening in relation to democracy and nationalism. The chief outputs of this archival research will be two journal articles and it will contribute substantially to a larger monograph project for a major university press, in addition to dissemination across disciplines and beyond academia.
Ward, Stephanie Dr SRG22\221335
Cardiff University
Black Political Activism in British Port Cities, 1918-1939
Value awarded: £2,929.20
Abstract: This research project aims to uncover experiences of political activism amongst Black British citizens in interwar Britain. It will explore how to reconstruct this history given the fragmentary nature of the primary source material and the marginalisation of Black British experiences in the historiography. The research will principally focus upon the experiences of men and women of African and West Indian descent who lived in well-established ethnically diverse communities in the port cities of East London, Liverpool and Cardiff. The primary ambition of the project is to uncover political experiences in the context of the everyday and family life in the period before the Windrush generation. It will help enrich pre-1945 histories of Black working-class families as well as understandings of political engagement after the interwar extension of the franchise.
Weiss-Cohen, Leonardo Dr SRG22\220291
Kingston University
Developing warning messages to reduce harmful online stock trading behaviour
Value awarded: £9,800
Abstract: Gambling is a harmful activity that is strictly regulated in order to avoid excessive out-of-control betting, in particular given the recent trend in easy-access online and mobile gambling platforms. However, limited attention has been given to the recent explosion in retail investment trading activity, with naive investors buying and selling shares online and using mobile devices. Excessive trading can also be harmful, with investors who trade frequently losing money. Using a simulated, but realistic, trading platform, our research aims to test the efficacy of existing regulatory disclaimers and warnings designed to reduce trading and protect investors, which we predict will have no effect. We will design and test more efficient disclaimers, informed in psychology, social norms and nudging. Our objective is to create an effective message that helps reduce unnecessary trading, and protect investors from financial harms. Results will be shared with the UK regulators through our existing contacts.
West, Emily Professor SRG22\220151
University of Reading
Enslaved Women and the Duality of Feeding in Antebellum South Carolina
Value awarded: £5,030
Abstract: My research uniquely integrates histories of slavery traditionally relegated to the realms of the ‘domestic’ into wider narratives about the development of American capitalism. Focussing on South Carolina, I will explore enslaved women’s feeding (from infancy to adulthood) of other enslaved people as a form of gendered exploitation -- but also an expression of pleasure, nurture and empowerment -- in the antebellum era (c.1815-1861). The processes by which food is produced, distributed, prepared, and consumed are vital to understanding manifestations of power and resistance. Yet food’s centrality to slavery’s capitalistic development remains surprisingly under-researched. Profit-seeking enslavers sought to feed people enough to work and to reproduce at minimal cost and they ensured efficiencies in feeding regimes by dictating that food be prepared and eaten communally rather than within individual family units. This brought enslavers into direct conflict with enslaved women who desired to feed families on their own terms.
Widanaralalage, B. Kennath SRG22\220635
University of Westminster
Voice to the voiceless: understanding disclosure and help-seeking in Black and Asian male survivors of sexual violence
Value awarded: £9,934.71
Abstract: Recent research has highlighted the deleterious impact of sexual violence on men, limiting and hindering their access to support and criminal justice services. However, research has failed to examine the cultural barriers (and enablers) to disclosure and help-seeking likely experienced by men from minoritised ethnic groups, who encounter added pressures to conceal sexual trauma and adhere to masculinity norms and scripts. Given the unequal access to care for marginalised communities, it is essential to understand how culture and ethnicity shape male survivors’ vulnerabilities and decisions around disclosing, seeking help, and reporting to the police. We will qualitatively examine the experiences of sexual victimisation of Black and Asian men in the UK. This research will provide novel insight into this hidden phenomenon, by exploring how disclosure and help-seeking may be affected by cultural pressures, towards informing practice and policy across vital entry points, including third and criminal justice sectors.
Wilcockson, Thomas Dr SRG22\221154
Loughborough University
Loughborough University Concussion IDentification (LUCID): concussion diagnosis using smartphone-based eye tracking
Value awarded: £9,940.59
Abstract: Sports players are at risk of head injuries and potentially concussion in any contact sport. Existing practice for measuring concussion during sporting events is highly subjective. More objective measures of concussion which provide rapid results are required to establish whether a player is able to continue or needs to be removed from the game. Eye movement tasks are able to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy/abnormal patterns of eye movements. During a concussion, neural pathways are disrupted, leading to measurable deficits in attention. The current study would demonstrate the utility of using a smartphone-based eye tracking system which could effectively measure the attentional deficits which are associated with concussion and provide immediate feedback regarding whether a player can continue playing. By utilising smartphone devices, the concussion tool would be easy to take to any sporting event and be available for all levels of any sport, from professional to amateur grassroots.
Wilkinson, Clare Dr SRG22\220481
University of the West of England, Bristol
INSIGHT: Ethical Best Practice in Science Communication and Engagement
Value awarded: £9,594.77
Abstract: This project aims to identify how researchers and practitioners communicating and engaging about science and health related topics consider the ethical dimensions of their communication. The role of science communication and engagement in the UK, as well as globally, has been very visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, and heightened attention towards the ethical dimensions of communication, such as who is excluded from research and how community perspectives can help to inform science and health. By conducting two stakeholder workshops and two focus groups (one in Bristol, one in Oxford) we will understand more about the role that ethics plays in communication and engagement with research. A series of interviews (10-15) in UK academic institutions, and in museums, science centres, and other informal learning spaces, will contribute to the project gathering UK-based evidence on the ethical dimensions of science communication and public engagement with science and health topics.
Winchenbach, Anke Dr SRG22\221058
University of Surrey
How can tourism maximise the positive impact and dignity for Indigenous people? A capabilities approach
Value awarded: £9,918
Abstract: Research suggests that tourism can be a catalyst for indigenous dignity, empowerment, and sustainable development due to its potential to provide economic opportunities and revival of cultural traditions. While there is an emerging literature on dignified work in tourism and the positive impact for Indigenous groups involved, there is a void in empirical studies on the factors and conditions conducive to restoring and protecting the dignity of Indigenous people in rural tourism development. Applying a qualitative micro-ethnographic approach, and following Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach, this project will identify the abilities, resources, and external conditions that enable Indigenous groups to develop and manage tourism enterprises that will support economic and socio-cultural development and lift individual and collective dignity. The research findings and implications for indigenous people in tourism, theory, tourism management, as well as policy will be shared and discussed with community members, local governments, NGOs, tourism practitioners, and academics.
Woods, Ruth Dr SRG22\220282
Robert Gordon University
How are young people in Britain affected by experiences of religious diversity?
Value awarded: £8,699.84
Abstract: Britain is a diverse society, composed of various religious and nonreligious worldviews. We routinely encounter worldviews different from our own, but little research has examined how these encounters affect us. Our recent exploratory study found that young adults in Britain responded to encounters with other worldviews in three ways: uncertainty (questioning their own beliefs), reconstruction (synthesising aspects of the novel and existing worldview), and resistance (dismissing novel worldview). The proposed mixed-methods research will further our understanding of how young adults in Britain are affected by encounters with alternative worldviews, addressing two research questions: (1) Under which conditions do uncertainty, reconstruction and resistance tend to occur in response to encounters with other worldviews? (2) How do these encounters affect young people, emotionally and socially? Multiple regressions of questionnaire data from 200 participants will address the first research question. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 20 participants will address the second.
Yeomans, Rory Dr SRG22\221295
Independent Scholar
Making Sense of Genocide: The Second World War and Memory Culture in Socialist Yugoslavia
Value awarded: £3,915
Abstract: This project examines how postwar Yugoslavia attempted to build a new common state in the aftermath of civil war, occupation and genocide. More broadly, it seeks to understand how states which have experienced violent ethnic conflict endeavour to overcome the trauma of the past. In particular, this study focuses on the attempt by Yugoslav Communist Party to make sense of the genocide committed against Serbs, Jews, and Roma by the Ustaša movement which ruled the so-called Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska - NDH) between 1941 and 1945, considering how literature, art, social experimentation, propaganda, monuments, exhibitions, and festivals were mobilized to create a common discourse about the past in pursuit of a socialist future built on brotherhood and unity. It also considers the diverse ways in which survivors and victims responded to and engaged with memory culture and how the regime managed these responses and expectations.
Zanetti, Francesco Professor SRG22\221227
University of Oxford
Supply-chain disruptions, economic activity, and the effectiveness of monetary policy: novel evidence and theory
Value awarded: £9,940
Abstract: The production of goods and services in modern economies involves complex supply-chain relations that require the formation of new partnerships, the severance of unprofitable partnerships, and the adjustments in the intensity of the input-output relations across partners. Despite these strategic choices are central to modern production, the evidence on them is scarce, and standard models abstract from these forces by assuming effortless partnership formation and constant intensity in input-output relations. Yet, the protracted supply-chain disruptions in the post-Covid economy undeterred by the large economic stimulus show the centrality of supply chains to aggregate economic activity and challenge the conventional effectiveness of economic policies.
This project will provide novel evidence on the different margins of adjustments of supply-chain relations using new data for the US and UK, and it will develop a theoretical framework to explain the data and study the role of supply chains for the effectiveness of monetary policy.
Zhang, Joy Dr SRG22\220431
University of Kent
Diffractive Knowledge Production in North-South Innovation Strategies: A Study of Major UK-India Bio-Governance Research
Value awarded: £9,450
Abstract: This project sits in the nexus of two major fields: science diplomacy and the decolonisation of global knowledge production. We see transnational academic dialogues on science policy not simply as a ‘diffusion’ or ‘negotiation’ with fixed standpoints, but as a ‘diffractive’ process in which the encounter of others produces superpositions of interaction, interference, diversion and reinforcement of facts and values. This feminist approach allows new insights on how rising powers such as India shape (or fails to shape) the global epistemology of responsible innovation strategies. It also critically expands our understanding of how social studies of science scholars and their research shape the geopolitics of science. Empirically, this project brings together six major UK-India life science governance projects over the past two decades. We systematically review their formal academic and policy ‘deliverables’, and illuminate the valuable ‘latent deliverables’ through oral history interviews and an online symposium.
Zimmermann, Angelika Dr SRG22\220443
Loughborough University
Frame deliberation in multi-stakeholder collaborations
Value awarded: £9,998.72
Abstract: Multi-stakeholder collaborations are essential for tackling today’s complex sustainability challenges. They typically aim at more inclusive decision making, knowledge co-production, and motivating stakeholders to support sustainability initiatives. In practice however, these collaborations often struggle to deal with stakeholder’s divergent frames, i.e., mental schemata for making sense of the issues at a stake. We need a better understanding of how micro-level interactions between stakeholders can help bridge such differences and achieve the collaboration aims. The proposed research will use the case of stakeholder collaborations on urban treescapes to examine mechanisms through which frames are elicited and deliberated, i.e., used, developed, and potentially adjusted during stakeholder workshops. The research will take into account both rational and emotional aspects of those frames. The project will provide new insights into how frame deliberation can be facilitated, and how it relates to the aims of inclusivity, knowledge co-production, and stakeholder motivation.